In-Person Connection Makes All the Difference: One Summit-Going Member’s Story

Aug 16, 2023 | News

By David Gould, Staff Editor

It’s a digital world and a Zoom-call society, but humans are social by nature and face-to-face contact still has magic to it. Golf, of all industries, is built on personal connection. That’s the perspective held by Janean Murphy, a Proponent member who volunteered to share why she is all-in for this year’s Summit. It’s a feeling based on all the career catalysts Janean has experienced through attendance at Proponent Group live events.

Barbara Blanchard, a fellow coach who came to Proponent Group through Murphy’s referral, now teams up with Janean on an enjoyable, relationship-building series of Pro-Student golf outings, on a “home and home” basis—a direct outgrowth of their Proponent connection. The two also talk shop and share helpful contacts and connections with each other. Being new to the Gateway Section of the PGA, Murphy had little expectation she would be sought out by an accomplished golf director in her area for advice, but indeed that happened—with Blanchard as the original conduit.

“Barbara was in contact with a golf professional who sought her advice about an offer from his club to take on the director of instruction role, while remaining director of golf,” says Murphy. “She told him the person he needed to speak with was me—and she was right, because I had a ton of information from Proponent Group that this guy absolutely needed—or he would have negotiated a bad deal for himself.”

Some of what Janean passed along came from the major “Business Value of Golf Instruction” presentation by Proponent Group at the 2023 PGA Show, some from website materials and some from one-on-one’s with Lorin during her own negotiations with a group of clubs that recruited her—out of which she went with Meadowbrook. After an hour on the phone with Janean, the grateful golf professional was able to go back to his club with a set of requirements and terms he would never have known to ask for. “You never know how a networking connection is going to happen, where it will come from or where it will lead you,” she says. “That’s why you go to gatherings of your coaching peers, in-person.”

She firmly believes that the invitation she sent to Scott Fawcett, founder and spokesperson for the highly successful DECADE program of strategic decision-making in competition, got accepted because she had spoken with Fawcett at a Proponent Group Summit. “As a Proponent member I had credibility in asking him down to our club—at an event attended by a group of other pros in our area,” she asserts. “I booked out our banquet room and filled it, all based on a feeling that I’m empowered, I can do things like this. If I hadn’t gone to that Summit, I wouldn’t have called him, and the whole thing would never have happened.”

We know Janean will be at Summit ’23 in Lake Mary, Florida on October 23-25 because she knows the value that has been created for her by being in the room. If you are serious about leveraging your Proponent Group membership to the fullest, attending our in-person summit is the biggest opportunity of the year. Register today at this link.