Ep. 31 | Join a Winning Culture: What It's Like to Get Hired and Work for UGP

We have a special episode today, where we discuss what it's like to get hired and work for UGP. It's a little peek at our company culture, hiring process, and how we're creating new opportunities in the golf industry for the newer generations.

It's a great episode for anyone who wants to start their career with us at UGP or are interested in learning more about the business side of our company!

Follow us on Instagram: @urbangolfperformance
Follow Mac: @mactoddlife
Follow Leo: @leo_ugp
Website: urbangolfperformance.com

Follow us on Instagram: @urbangolfperformance
Follow Mac: @mactoddlife
Follow Leo: @leo_ugp
Website: urbangolfperformance.com

Transcript

Leo 0:17

How's it going everyone. This is Leo. And I just want to jump in here before the episode starts and talk a little bit, a bit about how I was recruited, did a GP and well, my background is, and also the impact that joining UDP has had on my life. And so. I'm originally from Sweden. I grew up playing golf, competitive golf since I was 10. I played table tennis, as well as you might've heard on the podcast, I liked to talk and bring up table tennis as a great, uh, supplement to golf because of the nature of the sport. And I got competitive. I started playing Minotaurs, after high school, uh, up in Northern Europe and traveled, for two seasons, trying to, to, to play on tourists and amateur. Uh, because then after those two years, I was recruited to come play college golf here in California. And in college I started studying kinesiology and exercise physiology, and that. created this new path, that I didn't really know that I was going to get on, but I moved out to orange County and I started working with golf performance and it was something that just made a lot of sense for me. With my background in fitness and in golf. So I did that for two years here in orange County. I started my own brand. and, um, it was actually through that brand's Instagram, uh, Mack found me. And so Mac reached out to me and, just said, I like what you're doing. And we'd love to have you come up and visit. And I came up and visited a UDP, uh, West LA in early 2016. And I remember just seeing the potential of, of the first location, even though it was really early days, I saw the collaboration and the cohesive. Team, culture and the team, uh, with multiple departments under one roof. And I thought, okay, this is, this is something that could really, take off. And I had already ambitions, to kind of grow my own company. And I was very naive at that at that point. and I thought, okay, well, I can join this company. And. And kind of get that experience without any risk. So I, uh, I joined the company and I, the first six months was, were probably the toughest and most intense months, uh, of my career. and also the best because, um, pace of, of, of growth was out of this world. I had a full book, uh, You know, cash clients here in orange County and I was doing pretty well. I thought. And then joining UDP, I realized just how much left I had to grow in order to be a, not just a good trainer, but a good professional and understanding business and, and growing with, uh, with a company like UDP, we were about 10 or 11. Employees at that point. And now four and a half years later, we're almost 40. So the team is four times the size. We have three locations and a corporate office. And so, it's safe to say that that my whole life has been, impacted by, by just joining you GP, uh, in a tremendous way. personally and professionally, you know, the, what the brand and we go into this in this episode is what the brand does. Is it it's, it's, you know, it's really expecting the team to come in and do their absolute best every single day. And that made me excited because I knew that if the accountability was there, I'm very competitive. And so though I knew that. Really big and good things can happen if that's there, if that's constantly there. And so, and that's really, I think, was the key for me to grow with the company. and then the relationship with Mac where Mac is, is, is probably the most passionate and creative entrepreneur in golf. still to this day. not everybody knows this, but Mac basically designs the UDP locations, from scratch, right? Like there's no real designers other than Mac. so he has a, an amazing skillset and a relentless drive that I saw that I wanted to be a part of. I mean, I just, I saw the, I saw the future and I saw that there was a ton of potential. And so. The way it's, it's impacted me from a, from a professional standpoint. It's just now what I do every day. It's it's like, it's a dream for me because I get to develop these teams and work with people that I really love and work with with a game that I love the has given me everything in life, which is golf. And so, it's amazing. What, what, what can happen? When all of that's been constant is that, we expect everyone to try their best. And when you get competitive, good teammates on a team, really, really good things can happen. and it's not always been easy, you know, learning new things, learning new, skills, is a lot of times, tough, you know, the there's friction there's discomfort. And that's what I've learned is, is vital. Eh, of actually has to be there cause learning new things that are, you've never done before. Uh, if that's comfortable, you're probably not. Doing it right. Or you're not pushing yourself hard enough and you're not growing fast enough. So that's something that I've learned in the UDP culture sure. Is, is, is it's key to never be content. It's never good to, to be really comfortable because then what's left. You know, where, where are you going to grow and adapting a beginner's mindset. I'm always. Humble. Always realizing that we're just getting started. And if that's the mindset potential is unlimited. But if you think you're great, if you think you're, you got it all down, the potential is actually limited because there's not much for you to improve on. And so that's the culture that, that has been there from the start. And that's why the culture is so strong right now, across the three locations and, and in the corporate office, because over the years, we've, we've been lucky enough to just really attract the best people in the business. And that has taken a lot of hard work. And so this episode is really about that. Is, you know, how we recruit and who we're looking for and just how big of a challenge to actual is. And so I hope you enjoy it. I just want to go over a little bit about my background, as always, if you have any questions about anything that we bring up in the podcast, please reach out. my email is just you G p.la. Okay. And we'll be happy to, to discuss anything with you. Or just call into our locations. Please enjoy this episode, guys.

Mac 7:39

welcome to the urban golf podcast. This is Mack Todd here with Leo Rooney. It's just the two of us today. No guests. And we're going to be talking a little bit about our process and our history and our future and, and building our team here with urban golf performance.

Leo 7:53

Yeah. And, you know, the velocity of our kind of expansion is really based on people and how quickly we can find talent, train talent. and so we're always looking for ways to attract the best people in the world. And that's, that's been a challenge, and we're, we're constantly, figuring out how to. basically hire, recruit and, and find people that are, are looking for this challenge. And so we're going to talk a little bit about like how it is to work at UDP, what it takes, how difficult it is to get a job here and, and why we're able to grow this fast in this industry. and kind of what we're looking for in general.

Mac 8:39

I think it's kind of funny and I think kind of one way to start this, Leo is, you know, just talking about, I think I forgot who we had in the podcast. I think it might've been Mark where it said, um, Oh no, I actually was Thomas Plummer. He goes, you know, entrepreneurs. They just pretty much on hireable people. and so I think back to starting this company, you know, eight years ago, plus. And sort of where that came from and really trying to create a culture that was different than what I could find. I was like, I mean, that's kind of a good place to start is like, why, why create a job started as a job for myself? At 25 years old. And, you know, I played college golf, I played professionally for a little, a little bit of time. and I saw the golf industry inside and out growing up, country clubs and resorts to municipal courses, to tournaments, to all the different aspects of saw instructors that were on lonely driving ranges to top tier academies. I pretty much interfaced with all of the different, jobs that we offer at UDP from when I was about 10 or 11 years old, up until I was 25. And then I ended up working, driving ranges and, academies as well, you know, worked in the pro shop. So I started doing the jobs that also I was, being serviced to as a kid growing up, you know, here in the States. And so, No a lot of ways. Like I would look at those jobs and I would talk to those people. And most of them never really seem that happy, in their positions. And that's what I always kind of found where as a better player growing up, you weren't ever like, Hey, I want to go do those jobs. And I think a lot of people sympathize with that that are in the golf industry or, or players right now in college and high school. They're like, I'm not going to go in the golf industry. I don't want to fold shirts is something that I would hear all the time, or I don't want to apprentice for 20 years before I can actually teach a golf lesson, or I don't want to do a bunch of high volume golf instruction and not be part of a, happy culture that promotes me as an individual. So I'd hear all of these things across the board And then I then went and worked in these places and it came evident to me that, you know, and I would see Google was starting to become pretty popular, right. When I was coming out of high school. I'm dating myself here. Facebook, I was the first class using Facebook and in a major university outside of Ivy league, my freshman year in college. So the timing of when I was growing up as well and seeing company culture of these new tech startups was something that was like, You know, early two thousands, really, we were, we were downloading free music on Napster when I was 15 and we were sitting in the garage was playing Nirvana. And so the world has changed so much in the last 20 years. And I saw and recognized that, I wish my dad would let me buy Apple stock in college, but, but I saw and recognize that. And, I saw golf and sort of how it's slow moving and you know, this and that. I realized that if I could combine some of the innovative things that were happening across the board, in these different companies, in these different industries, and then bring that into golf and make a fun immersive environment, that it would be that it would be a good thing for the game. And it would attract a certain kind of individual that might actually not even exist yet. and doesn't know that that's a job that they want. And, and so that was, that was a big part of, it really was, it was seeing those trends, seeing those patterns. And so I think in a lot of ways, you know, recruiting at UDP and, and, and, and finding the right individuals and maintain the right individuals is hard because we're setting up, we're setting up a path, we're setting up a trend that wasn't there before. you know, you look at like a Google Facebook, they're not hiring old programmers that have been doing it since the sixties and seventies. There's so many guys, I know these old dogs that dinosaur programmers, they're like, I've been doing this since I've been programming. Since they're not looking for those guys, they're looking for kids, right? Yeah. that, that are ready to rock and that don't have any biases or, or anything like that around programming and their stigmas. They're like, I'm down for whatever you want to program all night long and drink monster energy and live in a house in Palo Alto. Let's build a billion dollar company. And that's what happened with Facebook. It's all put

Leo 12:26

himself.

Mac 12:28

Yep, exactly. Yeah. So for us, that's, that's really kind of, I think the right for this of this conversation, it's really talking about what the job was created, why it's different, why it's, why it's something that. that, that wasn't here before, and that was my motivation. I wanted to create a new kind of job in golf that brought in a different kind of individual. They created a completely different kind of experience and that was prepared for the future, versus trying to just absolve tradition and say that we need to do it the way it was done before.

Leo 12:58

Yeah, and I think that's the, that's the difficult part of it is because in certain ways what UDP did was it was, it was creating a completely new career path in golf the reality is that when you start coaching at UDP, you're trained very thoroughly on the front end. And then your, you have a full book of 25 to 30 sessions a week within two months to getting this massive amount of practical experience right off the bat. You get a full time salary right off the bat. Whereas normally in the golf industry, you start making 16 bucks an hour in the pro shop, but can tee times and selling golf balls. And then you do that for two, three years, and then you maybe get four or five clients a week. If you're lucky. And, and so, and then maybe you start to chase the head pro job, which is another three, four years. So it's like the reason why we are looking for people right out of college educated, they, they never really thought to go into the golf industry. Then they didn't even think that you could make good money. And be with a team and get trained while getting paid and all these other things. You'll still, you need in life like sales, interpersonal skills, service hospitality, and that's, that's why the UDP coaching job is like a completely new path and a new job that most people are not aware of. I mean, we're still a small team. We're a team of 40 across three locations in Southern California. And so, you know, this, this little episode is really for anybody that knows anybody, even if they're, you know, playing in high school golf, but they're really interested in golf. We're trying to figure out a way to, to inspire golfers, really young, to realize that this isn't an option. This is an alternative, like you don't have to go through the PGA program and spend a ton of money on the front end and not make anything in the first four or five years. You can flip that around and it's, it's a little bit of a disruptor, of, of a path. And so, so if you know anybody that, then this is kind of the, the little episode about recruiting that we want to record. So people understand who we are and how we do

Mac 15:20

things. Yeah. And I, and I think it's important to stand it's harder. It's it's it's it might be, yeah, it's more lucrative on the front end. You know, it's a, it's a much more fun dynamic, immersive culture. You're getting to test all your skills right away. But again, you're going to test your skills all right away. Like you can't stand in the pro shop. And, and like when a member walks into the shop, you can't just be like, Hey, how's it going? You know? And you can't just like, you can't just go and teach a lesson and not give it a hundred percent. So. For us, we expect a hundred percent effort. It's very much like you're going into your first year of law school. It's very much like you're, you're a freshman and we like, we, we push you. And we, we expect a lot, we expect five star service. We expect people to, you know, study when they go home after a long day at work. we test you all the time. Not just, you know, not just technically, but emotionally and psychologically. we are stress testing you to provide a five star experience in between the days. And so it's, it's not like you can just clock out and, you know, go play a Twilight round at the resort you work at, in Hawaii, you know, you, you actually have to, put in the effort, but that's what I wanted when I, when I was 23, 24 years old, before I started UDP, I w I was like, why are they just killing me here? Like, I'm just here. And I, I mean, I already played a lot of golf. I already competed at a high level. I've already traveled. I'm like, why am I sitting here? and then that'd be working with other people that were just so pumped that they got to play golf for free, or they got to play golf discounted. and I'm just like, you guys are ridiculous. Like you're only young. Once we need to be like tested. I, I wasn't, I was premed. I was supposed to be in medical school. Like if I'm not going to do that, and this is what I'm going to be in. I want to go home and study when I'm done for the day, I want to dream about where this is going and where I'm going and where my life is taking me. I don't want to just have this be a job that I get free golf. And I, serve people all day long and then I'm, you know, kind of like every one of the times I was working at this pro shop in Texas and one of the members came in and, you know, Was talking and, had a question about the golf course strike up conversation. And, you know, I was there with one of the senior assistant pros. That's been there for years and this is a pretty expensive club in Texas. And the member walks in and he goes, God, that guy such a schlep. You know, he just, he he's like, he just is terrible just over the top. And I'm like, and I'm just like, kind of like listened to him, like, yeah. Alright cool. Like whatever. And I'm like, what do you like, what, like, does that make you feel better? That you're just going to talk shit about that guy. Like, he's your member, he's paying our bills. He's like, this is what this is all about. Like, we should be out. Why are we in this pro shop two, two of us, three of us standing around, like, why aren't we out helping that guy get better? Why aren't we cultivating the game on the range on the course? We're all good players. Why are we in here? Just like. Curmudgeons talk like we're like 80 year olds in here, like complaining about the people. You know, we need to be out putting ourselves into practice situations and growing and learning and, And building our skillset. And so that, that was really like, I was pissed in these places, running a driving range, sound buckets, you know, teach, you know, not even getting to teach golf while I had all this energy. And I'm in a pro shop standing up all day long. I'm like, why is this like this, this is my pathway. And I'm going to Florida. I'm in the level one level, two level three seminars. They're in port, Saint Lucy. And I'm sitting there like listening, you know, to how to do turf grass management. And I'm just like, this is the pathway. I was doing everything the book said to do. Right. I played college golf. I went into the PGA program. I worked at ranges. I worked at academies. I worked in pro shops, everything you're supposed to do. And I was a high performer, all of them. And I was so not stimulated and not challenged. And so for me, I just said, look, I'm going to build a place that is going to challenge me personally. So I can grow as an individual, you know, at this critical stage in my life. that's all I really was looking to do. And I did have a vision for building a business, but to see it now come to a place where, you know, someone like Yulia and you can attest to what your journey's been like from when you started, you were one of those people that, you know, never would have thought to work in the golf industry, and argue probably whether or not we do is still a question, but, this is something where. you know, it was a different pathway and where you are challenged and where it is sophisticated. and it's gritty as well at the same time. And I, and I, and that's very attractive to me personally, and then I've embedded a lot of those values, and, and, and values of now the staff into our culture every day.

Leo 19:42

Yeah. And I think, you know, we, we talk a lot about, and you just mentioned how difficult it is and. And you get compensated for it, right? So we have, you know, good full time salary, health insurance for one, okay. Paid time off all of these, perks and benefits. But we also know that, our culture is set up in a way where we expect you to come in and do your absolute best every single day. And that might sound like trivial and like obvious. But that is actually very rare. I would say for companies to truly expect that. And that is an environment that is only really for selected few people. Like it's not because it's not always comfortable, right. Growth, requires some kind of discomfort because it's new things, new challenges. It's not new challenges every day. But the cool thing, cause there's obviously a lot of hard jobs out there, high expectations, crazy hours. But the, the, the different thing that we're doing is, yeah, you, you, in order to get up to speed, you might have to put in a lot of time because previously you had no experience, but that just based on your starting point, but what's cool is that you learn so much of the soft skills and actually kind of life skills that. Will benefit your professional and personal life. And we're very fair and, but, but we want everybody to reach their potential and most people are, I would say 95% of people are just not going to put that type of accountability on themselves. I was that person. I mean, I worked in, you know, the golf fitness industry before joining UDP. And I knew, I knew because I'm very competitive. I'm new though. I was not challenged. I knew that I had more in the tank and I was running at 40%. I did my best and I had some ambitions, but when I joined UDP, I realized that not, it was not necessarily Mac. It was like the brand that, demanded excellence of me every day. And that's something that I really thrived in. I loved that. but not everybody, he love style and that's okay. And I think that's what we realized over there. Yours is, if you don't love that, then go work somewhere, somewhere else, you know? And that's how our interview process has really changed over the years. It's much longer, much more thorough because we want to figure out if it's a good fit, both ways. You know, it's not just about us hiring you. And then you being 90% bought in, like, we want to make sure that you actually want this challenge because for most people joining you, GP is the most difficult thing they'll ever do in their life because we care about how's your eye contact, how's your handshake, you know, how's your body language, how's your posture, how's your appearance. How do you look every day? And that's just a couple of the details that we care so much about. And we haven't even gotten into the actual skills of the job to coach and train people. So you can't put a price on the experience that you get and the, and the education you get while getting paid. But in exchange, we expect people to try their best every single day. And you're never going to be able to really try your best, like a hundred percent every single day. But if there's a, if there's a lack of effort, that's where it doesn't work at UDP.

Mac 23:18

Leo, we have so many, I mean, we always equate it to, and I remember as we were going through the process of, you know, creating the culture and continue to refine it, it's like, Oh, we're a family. Oh, we're a business. Oh, we're a sports team. Like in trying to figure out like what our identity is. And in a lot of ways we are like a professional sports team. And, and I really, I really like identify with that strongly. And that's the thing is that like culture. Is, it's, you can define when you're building your own business, you can define that. And it's like, I've looked at the Chicago bulls, like I've looked at Manchester United, we talked about all of these different, you know, you look at STEM, I always talk about, we want to be like the Stanford, you know, sports programs, you know, and I mean, in a lot of ways, those are student athletes. And I think that that's really what we want at UDP. We want student athletes, we want people, like we talked to, we had Chris Como. on the, on the pod and he, you know, talking about how he's a student of the game and he's always listening, he's always learning. And the best coaches in the world are always learning. So like why become a golf instructor and act like, you know what you're talking about? and think that your shit doesn't stink. Like, that's the thing for me, that's like, I always found it kind of annoying, like, Oh, cool. Like you won a Korn Ferry event back in the day. And like now you're, you're a God on here on this range of yours in your own little world. Congratulations, you know, You know, the best instructors in the world are constantly learning, constantly trying to learn new, you know, learn new things, new ways of doing things and seeing other people's techniques. And so UDP was built like that. A student athlete platform, you know, and that's why like coming out of college golf, I was like, I don't want to let go the dream. I want to be part of a team I want to be, or someplace that always makes me better. And like Leo, you were just saying like, the brand is an aspirational thing. It's not, it's not me. It's this brand that was created that again, would push me to become better. And pushing me to like also want to be my best every single day. And it has pulled out of me along the entire process. And so, we're, we really are looking for student athletes, and truly, I mean, we're looking for people who, who want to learn and want to perform, and want to be part of a team. You know, and, and if you don't have that mindset, you're not going to make it. We've hired the head pros of clubs. We thought, Oh man, this had probed this top club. He's going to be amazing. He's got 20 years of experience. He played with tiger woods growing up, you know, this is going to be perfect. He's a Southern California boy, you know, and he knows the five star customer service, but no, the habits are there. The, the, the rituals are there that don't lead to fitting into a culture like this. and because of the, you know, the work ethic and the curiosity is gone. And, and the willingness to be humble and to work with a team and to grow, aren't there. And so that's again, why we do hire typically out of college and, and, and, and whatnot is because that student athlete mindset is still, they're very strong. They're, they're in the learning mode. They want to read books after they have a round of golf, they want to go out with their buddies and they want to have, you know, have some drinks and talk about their days. And they want to like invest themselves in the success of the team. And I think that. You know that couldn't define it any more clearly that we're looking for student athletes. Yeah.

Leo 26:11

and I think, you know, if we're going to boil it down, like what does it take to be successful at UDP? Because we actually don't have any requirements. Like we don't, you don't have to be PJ. You don't have to be a TPI. You'd only have, like, you don't even have to have a fitness certification. Like, we'll get that for you. And we'll train you. But the, the, the main two core values, cause we have very defined core values and a mission and a vision that IO was coming act two is gratitude and humility. Like if you have that combination, if you have that, you truly have that. And humility by the way means that you're happy and want to roll the towels in our facility. And that you're happy to help the team clean every single day. Like that's our culture. And that requires a lot of humility and gratitude to be in the facility. It's a beautiful facility. And so there's a lot of people that will like the idea of being a part of this team. Especially now we have a lot of traction, you know, calling Mara cover, winning the PGA championship. You know, we work with all this tour players. We have beautiful three locations. It's a, it's a dream job for a lot of people. You know, I have my dream job. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't even imagine working somewhere else. But the idea of doing it is, is, is really cool, but, but most people don't understand what it takes to actually succeed in our system. It's it looks really simple and cool and fun, but you realize like it's really hard work. And if you're, you're not, if you think that you're above rolling towels, you're not even going to get through the first interview. And so our high performers, you know, like there's so many examples that are literally, top trainers, top coaches, they're machines in the sense of like, they're so grateful and they're still so humble, even though they're the best performance. And then they're, they're the ones that clean the hardest too. And so that's, that's our culture. And. That is certainly not for a lot of people that are in the golf industry right now, unfortunately.

Mac 28:23

yeah, in a lot of ways, Leo too, like they're having, you know, having fun doing it like that. That's the best part about it. A good student athletes. Like if you look at like the top tier, you know, football programs, basketball programs, golf programs, whatever, whatever sport table tennis, if they, you know, if they have collegiate programs or table tennis, No, you look at their cultures and they're having a good time. Like they're there, but they're busting their ass. Like, I, I, you know, I love like the San Antonio spurs, like the Gregg Popovich, they get so much flack. They're like, Oh, it's a Colt and this and that. And Oh, you know, Greg, kind of bossing around all these grown men. you know, talk about Belichick and the Patriots and like how messed up he is and like this and that. And like Tom Brady and you know, Oh, this, you know, this culture and it's cutthroat and he'll cut you in a second, but he says, he loves you. And it's like, they all criticized. But like, dude, those are like championship. Like those are like best. It's teams of all time and their sports and it's the cultures were created. And no one that plays for those teams is above the culture. No one is above the brand of the spurs. No, one's above the brand of the Patriots. No matter if you're Tom Brady, you're Tim Duncan, whoever you are, you're not above the brand. And, and the culture. And so you criticize these brands all day long. Oh, they're weird. And Popovich does this weird stuff and Belichick does this. Yeah. They do weird stuff. It's unconventional and that's why they win. And that's why their championship caliber. And so for us, we do some weird shit too. We're weird. We're not conventional. That's our training programs, our hiring process, the kind of people that we hire, the way we train you, the expectations that we have are not like anything you're going to see anywhere else. And it's not something you can really copy either as a business, any other way, businesses listening to this that want to copy our brand. Can't copy it. It's our identity. It's our, it's our it's our soul is built into the brand and it's a daily in and out process. It's not something that you can copy and replicate. All right. So for us, like really, truly, this is. it's a, it's a wonderful experience because we're getting to, for our own identity and our own belief system into our own reality, and if it produces results and we're going to keep reinforcing that, and that was the best part about getting the investor, our investor and the founder of Tom shoes. Huge. I mean, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, you know, considered the, you know, the pioneer of social giving and business. And so. he comes in as a customer falls in love with the brand is like, man, I identify with this strongly, he played college tennis at SMU was an elite tennis player growing up. He was just like, this is the student athlete thing I'm missing in my life. I miss this last 10, 15 years when building a family, building a business, I miss being a student athlete. And so he fell in love with that whole culture and that whole experience, and then continued to, you know, again, reinforce us on that, make us make sure that we're even more sophisticated, more compassionate. You know, kinder, and really helping our, our staff develop as people, not just as professionals. And so he's had a huge impact on our culture, but again, someone who could, you know, nearly a billionaire could do anything with this time, 43 years old made tons of money, young family, and he's like, I want to be part of this culture. He didn't need the money. He's not looking for the investment. But really he wanted to be part of the culture because he identified with it so strongly and then wanted to help reinforce it and knew that it was important for our industry and for the world. for us, that's just been huge. And I think in a lot of ways, reinforced to me even more and our team, even more that we're doing things right. And we're only the double, triple, quadruple down on the way you do things. And so I think that. You know, I had a lot of insecurity as an entrepreneur, starting it out. Cause it was such a new pathway and people were judging me all the time. I'm saying, you know, who do you, who are you? What do you know? And, and, and as we've gone along, the confidence has grown. And the reinforcement has been there from the head coach at UCLA. We turned them in to UCLA golf team to Blake. My Koskie to call more call on his team that you know, is one of the best players in the world. So more and more you're like this isn't a, this isn't just a, a fad. And not only am I just experiment, this is something that people from all sex of life and all different components of, of, of playing ability and stake in the game are behind. And I mean, the amount of letters I've gotten from customers, from employees, mothers from employees, from partners saying you have changed our lives. And what you're doing is important work for the world. You're developing these men and women and helping them become better people. And, and giving them life skills are going to improve them off, off the job and in their lives is just the most rewarding thing that I could ever imagine. And so for us, it's, again, this is not a light culture. This is a winning culture. So if you're listening to this and you want to work for you, GP, and you want to be a winner, that's really what you're going to come into and it's not easy. And it's a process it's going to take time. You're not going to come in here and, and dominate we're we're already dominating you. Come in, we're going to fill you up with clients and we're going to make sure you're humble on the process. And then we're going to make sure you're still growing. You're still maturing and that you have a vision in line for yourself that lines up with our company vision. So there's just no bullshit here. You know, there really isn't and, and it's, and it's more and more we grow and the stronger we get, the more defined that's going to be. And on a, on another side note of sort of how we have our staff, we have no more than 12 employees. 12 to 14 employees per location. So it's a very tight team in every single location. And so the culture can stay tight. It's much more run like a sports team in that way where you only have 12 people and you do have hierarchies. You have the higher performers, you've got the weakest links, just like on any team. But our main focus is getting that weak link up to the middle. And then our main focus is the guy on top to continue to raise his ceiling. And so. We're constantly pushing and fighting for a better way of winning across now, three pods, three locations in three teams, and now the teams are competing against each other and lifting each other up. So it's just a, just a beautiful process. And if you can't hear the passion in my voice and you're not listening,

Leo 34:08

and I think, you know, it's important, like, you know, the winning culture that Mac just mentioned is, you know, you can, you can maybe care that and say, Oh, all they care about is profits and money and, and growing locations, expansions. And actually it's

Mac 34:21

quite the

Leo 34:21

opposite. If you look at our core values and what we've, I mean, we just talked about gratitude and humility is not about cutting people from the team right away when they're not performing. and like only caring about the performance, of the company. It's actually much different. We, we, we put all our effort into everyone on the team. That comes in everyday and give, gives their best effort. That's that's the, that's the point prerequisite, right? So it's not necessarily this cutthroat

Mac 34:55

culture. Like you look

Leo 34:56

at what we've done. you know, socially, you know, whether it's, you know, one of our coaches got stage four cancer, we raised$55,000 in three days. Like. Whether it's, helping out people in need, whether it's financial need or emotional need. Like, we definitely act like a family when it's needed, because we can't really, we are like a family with, with everyone that, works and truly is a part of the

Mac 35:23

culture.

Leo 35:24

so it's definitely a winning culture. but it's, but it's a winning culture. That is way deeper and way more in depth than, than making money. You know, that's not our main goal at all. Actually, we could be making a lot more money right now, but we're reinvesting into these programs, whether it's improving the employee experience in these. Benefit programs or it's investing in these loans locations, we're constantly upgrading and updating them. So that it's a more enjoyable experience for both clients. we're not looking to, capitalize on this right now. We're looking to grow this company for the next, decades. and so we're very passionate. and like max said, we're looking for people that are ready for that challenge that are ready to, to actually grow personally and professionally. And that's what we like. That's what we live for now is seeing these teammates. Like after two years, I UDP they're like different people. Like they're whether their parents or their partners, they actually say that to us. They're like, Hey, my, my girlfriend is like, so happy EGP or, you know, my, my parents tell them, tell me that I'm like completely different socially. You know, because we really care about, all of these different skills. It's not about making it's about developing people, whether it's clients or the staff, we carry almost as much to develop our, our team because they're the ones that are gonna help the clients. So it's a very unique culture. and, and people call it all kinds of stuff. You know, that we're cutthroat or people think we're a cult. but if you really know us, you realize all we do is we, we really expect excellence and we're trying to do big things and you can't be mediocre if you're trying to grow a global golf performance brand. and we're doing it while really caring about people. but expecting everything they got is not always easy.

Mac 37:31

Yeah. And it's like you said too, it's like, this whole idea, like, on the note of what we have, we have all this amazing technology. These bays are$150,000 bays that you know, that, that our coaches are coaching in. We have million dollar facilities, multimillion dollar facilities that we have. I mean, these things are these places that we have are beautiful, so much was invest into it. I think they're the nicest, you know, most well-designed, you know, golf performance facilities. I've seen of indoor facilities in the world and we constantly are getting praised in that way. And so, we're investing in all in, in all components of the experience for the staff and for the customer. but the one of the biggest things, and we talk about this, we talked about the other day, cause our relocations are just dreaming. They're overflowing. We don't have enough room to take on new clients. Really it's two, three weeks out to get started at UGB and pretty much every location. And, you know, one of the things that we talked about our staff, you know, on, on the phones is saying like, Hey, like, you know, we're, we're, we're too busy to take on new clients. you know, or, or turning people away and this whole idea, and it's like, Really, we spend so much time with our staff explaining about being humble, being hungry, having that day, one mentality, having that, you're not above anybody. So like really kind of ensuring that all these guys there are a lot of these people are coming into a winning culture and then thinking we're winners and w w winning is a daily process. W you know, you might be winning today, but you will lose tomorrow. If you think you're winning. And so you always have to have that hunger. And so, you know, or teaching them, someone calls in your full, it doesn't matter. It can take care of them and there's a million ways to take care them when you can't book them immediately. you know, the idea of a staff member coming and saying, Hey, I got this client to hit a draw. No, you did it. Every every, you know, buddy, before you and everybody around you and that client, most importantly, is who hit that draw and, and made those changes and made those improvements. And so we're constantly humbling everybody around us because we do have bounty. We are successful. We are killing it. But, in order to keep that hunger, we've got to stay humble. And I think me coming from the background of like being on welfare and social assistance and started the company 50 grand and grinding my gears and reinvesting constantly, it's like, once you do that, you never are the same. I'm always going to want the culture at UDP, no matter how big we get to act like we're on the first day. And I'm just selling my first client on a package of sessions, or I'm just teaching my first lesson. I want it to be like, we are just at that same place again and again and again, and that's why we've grown so fast and that's what Blake fell in love with. And I think that's why Leo's still here dealing with me.

Leo 40:00

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's really interesting. You say that because I think, you know, when it comes to who we hire, we really hire anybody. You know, it's not like we only hire young or this and that. Like anybody though is, is quality. Finding can go through our interview process. We will hire that can add value to our organism. I mean, we just hired, you know, Erica Wang, a golf coach here and, and OSI, and she just college, she has filled up hers schedule faster than any other coach in the history, the company so she was full in basically one month. in, in our, in our smallest location, actually. and we have Kevin Moore and like, we have people from everywhere in the world and from all kind of steps of life. So it's not like we're looking for this specific person, whoever is, is fitting that, that, humility, gratitude. and really, truly wanting that challenge, not wanting the idea that, actually wanted to want to, help and come in and join this amazing culture. And it doesn't matter who that person is. No, those are the people that we're looking for.

Mac 41:14

Yeah. And I think one thing would be good for us to talk about. Leo is a little bit about the training process, you know, because I think a lot of times, like we've been told multiple times by our staff, I've never been trained like this before. I've never had this level of intensity training. I've never had these expectations. And so I think a lot of, you know, if you're a company listening to this, just how important training is expensive. You know, I remember when I first started, I was pretty much hiring people on Craigslist and friends and family, and I was just throwing them in with my clients and. Underpaying everybody. And, and, and, you know, Just making up for my lack of experience by buying everybody dinner and drinks, you know? So it's a, you know, really kind of this, this process now it's gotten so sophisticated, it's been a big part of Leo's involvement with the company as well and how much more the expectations are around training our staff. But you know, the training yeah. Process is something that I'm very, very proud of now. And it's something that Blake's influenced with the different things that we've gone to and, and, you know, kind of emotional and psychological growth that we've gone through as, as, as men growing this company. And we've embedded that into our continually evolving training process. And it starts out with, you know, a week of very intensive, pretty much you're what the directors of the company, all day, every day for a week. And then once that's done, it's pretty much, you know, a three month monitoring process, you know, you're pretty much being watched on every move. You're making phone calls. You know, coaching sessions and we're making sure that your are fitting up to the UGB standard. We're having those crucial coaching conversations with you as you're making mistakes or as you're having success. And once we, I feel like that gets to a stable point within anywhere between 30 to 90 days. Cause some people come in and they kill it right away and we just gotta keep them humble. and some people, it takes a little bit longer. I would, if it's taken longer than 90 days, it's probably not a good fit. So 30 to 90 days we, we push and we push and we push. And when we lose those ones and when they don't work out, it's so painful. So for us, we look at any, any coach, any staff member that doesn't work out is a complete loss on our end. we never look at it like they just didn't fit. no, it's it's, we didn't hire correctly or we didn't train correctly. And it's always us for us to, up to learn from those experiences. But. You know, once we do get you into flow and you're killing it and you're 90 days in it's pretty much, we just want to assimilate you deeper and deeper and deeper into the team. And then the next phase from that is then finding out what is your longterm vision and game plan with the company we're, we're planning on growing all over the world. You know, are you going to run one, one day? Are you going to be a director of, you know, a certain region or a certain part of our brand? Are you going to get into multimedia? Are companies going to have a lot of arms and legs as it grows all over the country? And so there's so much opportunity. So we want to make sure that people are thinking about that a while, while performing at a hundred percent day in and day out.

Leo 43:54

Yeah. and to give you kind of some insight on the training is, you know, and the reason why I think people feel so challenged is because. We, we care a lot about the small little details, you know, whether it's how you answered the phone, you know, how do you look when you answer the phone? Are you smiling so that your tone changes and it's a little bit more positive and happy? how do you do under pressure? You know, we, whatever that pressure could be, it could be because you're servicing, George Clooney or Anthony Davis. Like if you're not good under pressure, Then you're not, you're just not going to be able to get buy in from, from the people that you're trying to educate. So we do a lot of pressured reps, you know, like you're under the pressure. You have to either, tell me who you are and, and, and, and pitch yourself like an elevator pitch and doing that under pressure. Like 50 times, it can be very challenging. Or if you're trying to schedule me, just in mock training and just over and over and over again. and, and the reason why we put so much pressure on is basically how you, how you get better at golf, you know, in order to get better at golf. We, we train our staff the way we, coach our players really. I mean, if you want to compete well in tournaments, you can't just hit balls on the driving ranch. You actually have to. To get reps under pressure. and so that's maybe unique. I don't know. I don't know how other companies train, but, it is definitely challenging. But then when you, when you go play the tournament, you feel comfortable and you feel confident because you had those reps under pressure. And you're like, I got this because we won't stop until you got it. otherwise we're going to put you in a uncomfortable situation where you don't feel soften it and how you're going to act and speak and coach. So, that's, that's kind of the, I guess the cornerstone and the training is, it's not just learning information. It's actually truly actively listen, take it in, understand how to apply it. And then. Wrap it out until you it's second nature. And that's, that's a process that doesn't take just the first week because it continues for four months.

Mac 46:13

Yeah. And it's not just like kill, you know, again, and like, you know, as, as we, you know, as we wrap this episode up and, and, you know, hopefully some of you that are listening apply, and also some, either listening can think of someone who would fit into a culture like this. So you think this would be great for them and change their life. But. One of the, one of the things that I I'm, I'm really proud about is our company's gotten more stability and, and, you know, more comfort in, you know, in the next day being at least, you know, on the board, is, is just how, how fun it is to, like, you know, I can't believe seeing like all the. I never really got to play with the guys. As I grew the company in a lot of ways, I was playing with clients or I was playing strategic rounds with people that would be good for the business. but really seeing like all the staff get together, all these people, all these student athletes, essentially getting together, you know, their, you know, their girlfriends and boyfriends and husbands and wives are getting together. They're all like going out for dinners. They're having game nights, they're golfing together on a weekly basis. I can't even believe how much these guys are golfing. they're working out together. I mean, the guys who were out of shape and girls are out of shape, we're getting trained by the ones who are in shape. And then the ones who are not golf competent, some of the newer guys offers are getting better at golf. Like it's just, it's so awesome to watch like them have this culture that, yeah, they kill it at work, but they also have so much fun together and they care about each other and they lean on each other. They are their support systems. In these bigger cities. and a lot of our staff, like Leo said, aren't from art, from Southern California. They're coming from all over the world. And so to be able to come to a place like LA and have a team, having an infrastructure have connections is something that I didn't have coming to LA. I didn't know anybody. And I was a total stranger to everybody and, and I didn't have a brand to lean on. And so I feel so proud seeing these guys. I mean, a lot of these guys, they don't, they don't change out of their work uniform when they leave for the day. They're wearing their stuff because they're proud of it. And it gets them discounts places and gets people saying, Oh, you guys are part of that golf place. That's awesome. And so they're proud to be part of the team. They get together, they wear the hats, they have the bags. They're like it is their family and it is their team. And so it's just, it's a beautiful thing for me to see where I'm not part of the day to day anymore. And I'm just watching from the outside and admiring, like what it is that these guys are doing every day and the way that they're living and the results they're producing.

Leo 48:32

Yeah, no. And, and that's, that's so, so fulfilling and so great to see. and if you're passionate about golf performance, there's just, there's very few places like EGP. and so, yeah, I know this is fun. we plan on continuing to create content like this, to give you kind of some insight on like the back end of this business, the back office. cause I think a lot of people know about UDP, but they might not know, you know, how we run it and how we actually operate this business.

Mac 49:04

All right. Well, I hope everybody enjoyed this episode as always. Anyone can reach out to me directly@macatudp.la. you can go to our website@urbangolfperformance.com. You can follow us at urban golf performance on Instagram, and we're constantly posting there as well. You can follow Leo at Leo, underscore underscore UDP on Instagram, and he's always posting cool stuff up there. So, our doors wide open, honestly, if you guys give us a call, I'm reachable, and I wish you all the best and, and for some of you guys listening, hopefully this was informative and inspiring and, and something that can help you guys along your journey. Thank

Leo 49:40

you everyone.