Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / How Linda Cozzi Grew Philadelphia Cricket Club from $11M to $38M Through Employee Investment

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How Linda Cozzi Grew Philadelphia Cricket Club from $11M to $38M Through Employee Investment · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Codispodi and
0:16
today's guest is Linda Cozy, Chief Financial Officer of the
0:20
Philadelphia Cricket Club. They have been recognized among
0:24
the top clubs in America since 1854, offering multiple sports
0:28
facilities, 6 dining venues and premier event hosting.
0:33
Their mission is to engage and enrich their community through
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creating fun and active social experiences that athletes of all
0:40
levels can enjoy, from beginners to world champs.
0:45
Linda has over 30 years of experience in finance and
0:47
operations across hospitality and sports.
0:51
She is overseeing a triple top line revenue growth,
0:55
transformational capital projects and has achieved record
0:58
high employee satisfaction. Under her leadership, the club
1:02
has also gained recognition as a Top 50 Platinum Club of America
1:07
and Top 150 Platinum Country Club in the world.
1:12
Linda has held leadership roles on the board of the Philadelphia
1:15
and Vicinity Club Management Association and serves as
1:19
President of the Philadelphia Club Foundation, demonstrating
1:22
her dedication to advancing the industry.
1:26
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2:10
All right, back to our guest today, CFO of the Philadelphia
2:13
Cricket Club, Linda Cozy. Thanks for making the time to
2:16
Share your story today. Thank you.
2:18
It's a pleasure to be here. So Linda, you first went to
2:21
school for finance and accounting.
2:24
What first sparked your interest in that?
2:28
You know, it's funny, It kind of came by happenstance.
2:30
I was a senior in high school and needed an elective to, you
2:34
know, finish out the year. And I took a bookkeeping class
2:38
just on a whim. And it just clicked with me and
2:43
I, you know, didn't no one in my family was an accountant.
2:47
My dad was a high school math teacher and football coach.
2:51
And I thought, wow, this could be a, a potential.
2:54
And so I went through the accounting route and it's worked
2:58
out for me. It's fit pretty well, and you've
3:01
worked at a number of places since graduating that put a high
3:05
degree of focus on hospitality. You know, hotels, country clubs,
3:10
golf courses. What first got you interested in
3:13
these types of industries? You know, I think it's again,
3:19
just a kind of natural progression.
3:22
I was working in a hotel while I was going to college.
3:24
I was working in the bar. And when I graduated, they
3:27
offered me a management and training program in their
3:31
accounting department. And it just kind of went from
3:34
there. I'm from the South, and I think
3:36
the South is kind of synonymous with hospitality.
3:39
So it just seemed like a good fit for me.
3:42
And throughout my career, it's I've just gravitated towards
3:45
that. Before we talk about
3:48
Philadelphia Cricket Club, pick one of your career stops along
3:52
the way that was particularly formidable for you and explain
3:58
big, powerful lesson that you learned there.
4:01
You know, I was very fortunate in that first job right out of
4:04
college. I was so excited and I was
4:09
charged with auditing food and beverage, internal controls.
4:14
I was so excited. I went and found every mistake I
4:16
could find, right? And I thought I was, I was like
4:20
so pumped. I was doing my job, you know,
4:22
because I found all of this stuff and my controller came to
4:26
me and he said, Linda, you know, you'll attract more bees with
4:30
honey than with vinegar. And that just flipped the switch
4:34
for me and really changed the trajectory of my career.
4:40
After that, instead of being an auditor, I became a business
4:43
partner. So I worked so closely with
4:47
operations. I even had one team who won food
4:50
and beverage operation of the year.
4:52
And it got to the point where they didn't hate seeing me.
4:56
They're like, oh, come in, Linda, let me show you what
4:58
we're doing. So that just business partner
5:02
role that I took as opposed to an auditor changed the rest of
5:07
my career. I got to a point where I started
5:09
understanding operations, understanding what they went
5:12
through. And that really helped me become
5:16
more of a storyteller than a bean counter, as I'll say.
5:21
And So what did that look like from a practical standpoint?
5:24
Were you no longer looking for all the little tiny mistakes or
5:28
were you still looking for them but then maybe being more
5:33
contributory to the solution? Exactly.
5:37
I was, I, I would teach them what I'm looking for so that
5:41
they knew how to. So in food and beverage, you're
5:44
like labeling items, rotating them, so you're using the oldest
5:47
one first, that kind of stuff. So I would go and teach them
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what it is that I'm looking for. So that then all I was reporting
5:55
is how great they were doing. So it, it just became a great
5:59
relationship. And then, you know, again, it
6:01
was I viewed my role as not an auditor, but as a support
6:07
function. How can I make your operation
6:09
better in the job that I provide?
6:13
So it it just, it really it just changed that whole relationship
6:17
to a business partner is what I'll call it.
6:19
And you said something about becoming a storyteller it.
6:22
Do you mean that in the sense of being able to tell a story to
6:27
your team members about why things are done a certain way,
6:30
or was there a different context there?
6:32
No, a different context. So because I knew so much about
6:35
what was going on in the operation, I could take the
6:38
numbers and then tell the story of the operation based on the
6:43
variances or whatever was happening.
6:47
That's what I mean by storyteller, is that I could
6:49
tell the story behind the numbers, not just report the
6:52
numbers. Can you think of a specific
6:55
example? So like if early in my career in
7:02
hotels, if you had, if you were beating revenue targets, but you
7:06
weren't bringing a certain percentage down to the bottom
7:09
line, telling those types of stories as to why or why not
7:14
that might be happening. There was one particular time in
7:20
my manufacturing career where I was at Sara Lee Coffee.
7:26
I built such great relationships that if a batch of coffee was
7:30
burnt and then reused into like a lower product, they were
7:35
coming to me and telling me. So when I had variances in
7:38
inventory, I was able to tell leaders this happened, but we
7:43
were able to recover parts of it by, you know, reintroducing it
7:47
into a, a higher, you know, a different product.
7:52
But we still have this small variance.
7:54
So explaining to leaders why things why the numbers were the
7:58
way they were, so that they could make better decisions and
8:01
not necessarily worry about it being a particular problem, if
8:06
that makes sense. That helps a lot.
8:07
Yeah, Thanks. OK.
8:09
So then how did the opportunity to join the Philadelphia Cricket
8:12
Club come about? So I was doing some consulting,
8:16
some interim CFO work and installing systems, which was
8:21
kind of my specialty. And they were looking for ACFO
8:27
at, at cricket. I was in Atlanta at the time.
8:30
I didn't know if it was the right fit.
8:32
So I just reached out to the the GM at the time and I said, you
8:37
know, I don't know if this is the right fit, but I can at
8:40
least come and be your interim Cfoi can install the system.
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I've done it before. I can get you through it.
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And if it works out great and if it doesn't, then I will help
8:48
transition to your new person. It's quite an.
8:51
Offer. Well, it works out for me.
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It gave me the consulting work that I needed.
8:57
This was during, you know, the still recovering from the
9:00
financial crisis of O8O9. It was 2011 and I came.
9:07
They at the time that the revenue here was still pretty
9:10
low, so they weren't willing to quite pay what it would cost for
9:15
me to move my family up here. So I transitioned with the new
9:18
person. Unfortunately, that person was
9:21
not equipped for the volume that happens here.
9:25
So I kept coming back during the year and at the same time
9:29
looking for a permanent job because the consulting work was
9:32
so sporadic. And I was using the GM as a as a
9:36
reference. And he's like, no, you need to
9:38
come work for me. And I'm like, well, I told you
9:41
what it would take. And he's like, OK, get up here
9:44
and. You at that point, you had
9:46
proved yourself that you're super valuable.
9:48
We need you. We're going to bump up the the
9:50
compensation. And I've been here ever since.
9:54
OK. And so tell us about actually
9:57
paint a picture for us what it was like when you first came in.
10:01
What were some of the problems that needed to be fixed or
10:03
addressed? Oh, it took me a good year to
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clean up the books. The my predecessor here,
10:14
unfortunately, there could be board meetings where they didn't
10:17
get financials, so the bar was pretty low.
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And the price that I got at the end of that year, I was like,
10:29
all I did was give you financials.
10:31
It's not that hard. But I did have a lot of clean up
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to do. It took me a good year to get it
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to where I was comfortable with it, which means that everything
10:41
ties out. I'm pretty detail oriented.
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And so it was a lot of work that first year.
10:46
But then after that, you know, I've just kept it going.
10:49
But yeah. So aside from having to clean up
10:53
the books, what were some other issues that needed address and
10:57
and maybe those had to wait until after the books were
11:00
cleaned up? No, because simultaneously we
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were doing a $17 million project on 2 campuses.
11:09
So we also had that, you know, a huge capital project that was
11:13
going on. So yeah, it was a little more
11:18
than just cleaning up the accounting.
11:19
It was keeping things going, being able to provide solid
11:24
financials that leaders can make decisions on whether it's OK,
11:28
can we borrow money now? What does the future look like,
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you know, for that forecasting, that kind of stuff.
11:34
So it it was a lot at once. But I love challenges like that.
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I know that sounds disturbing, but I do.
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So yeah. So you mentioned multiple
11:49
campuses. Let's take a step back for a
11:51
second and paint a more complete picture for us of the
11:54
Philadelphia Cricket Club. What goes on there?
11:58
What happens at the different campuses?
12:00
Membership to give us the whole lay down.
12:04
So we're a private Country Club, full service Country Club.
12:07
So that means that our members own us.
12:12
We're not an equity club. You can't sell your membership
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to someone else. We don't have houses around our
12:18
property. So we're we're truly a
12:20
neighborhood club. We have two locations.
12:22
They're about 5 miles apart with three clubhouses.
12:27
So we have one location, we call it Saint Martin's, that's in a
12:32
suburb of Philadelphia called Chestnut Hill.
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The area itself is called Saint Martin's, which is why we call
12:38
this campus Saint Martin's. That has all of our racket
12:42
sports, it has the pool, it has the banquet facilities and a
12:46
nine hole golf course. And then 5 miles away we have
12:50
218 hole golf courses where we also do trap shooting there as
12:56
well. And we have two club houses that
12:59
have food and beverage. So it's pretty big operation for
13:05
a private club. We're considered a large club
13:09
mainly because of the two campuses and because of the size
13:12
of our membership. We're up to about 1900 number
13:16
ships right now, which means with kids and spouses it's about
13:20
4800 members. Our top line revenue is about
13:24
36,000,000, actually might be about 38 million this year and
13:31
when I started we were about 11,000,000.
13:33
Oh, my gosh. OK, so there's a big story
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there. How did you increase revenues so
13:39
much? By increasing membership, our
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membership in when I started was right around 11150 and now
13:48
we're, you know, going to be a little over 1900 memberships
13:52
now. The the structure was different
13:57
too. Country clubs have a tendency
14:00
especially and we're the oldest Country Club in America.
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We were established in 1854 by some cricket players and you
14:11
would you can imagine being the oldest Country Club.
14:14
Sometimes you continue to do things the way you've always
14:16
done them. Thankfully this club doesn't
14:20
think that way, but for a very long time, up until, you know,
14:25
some new management came in 2011, they had what you called a
14:31
kind of a la carte service where you paid, you were either
14:35
individual or family and then you picked what sports you
14:38
wanted and you could change them every quarter.
14:41
Can you imagine trying to forecast the dues on that?
14:44
It's crazy. So they had the vision to change
14:49
that to an all inclusive membership, which is now pretty
14:51
much what you see everywhere where you have everything, both
14:56
campuses, all golf, all facilities, or you just have the
15:01
Saint Martin's campus, which is the racket sports and the pool.
15:05
It does include the 9 hole golf course.
15:07
Or you just have a social membership, what we call a
15:10
house. So you.
15:12
Change the the membership structure.
15:15
Yeah, it really increased the revenue immediately because you
15:20
have now everyone supporting all of the facilities as opposed to
15:24
oh, I only want. Yeah.
15:27
And then you increase membership from 1100 memberships to 1900.
15:32
How did you go about doing that? Just I think the capital
15:36
projects helped a lot because we we were growing by about 100
15:43
memberships a year for a couple years in a row.
15:46
After those projects. We also did some, you know,
15:50
reduce our initiation fee, made the barrier to entry a little
15:53
bit easier too. We've since gone away from that,
15:57
but it was really helpful in the beginning.
16:01
And then we've continued to do projects.
16:04
In 23, we finished another $17 million worth of projects and
16:10
we're currently underway doing some some additional projects
16:14
with adding a golf performance center and renovating another
16:18
clubhouse. So you know, we're constantly
16:21
innovating, constantly reinventing into the facilities.
16:25
We are the first in the area to add padel, which is a racket
16:30
sport out of originally started in Mexico, but it's really grown
16:35
traction in Spain and it is now growing into the US.
16:39
We were one of the first country clubs in the area to have that.
16:44
So just constantly looking at ways to enhance the member
16:47
experience. And then I know we'll get into
16:52
this at some point, but just investing in our staff because
16:56
our staff create the experience. And when you have such a
17:00
positive experience, your members want to invite their
17:03
friends to to join, which all members are, are referrals
17:08
anyway. But so it's just kind of been
17:12
this organic growth through a series of really good decisions.
17:18
So I want to dig into a few things that you said there.
17:21
First of all, Pedel, my first time hearing about it, I just
17:24
looked up some images. Yep, racket sport, a low net
17:30
looks like it's in a, a, in a cage or like a, a room.
17:34
Like, is it sort of like racquetball where you bounce the
17:36
balls off the walls? So it's a mix between squash and
17:40
tennis. So it's scored like tennis.
17:43
It's a heavy tennis ball that's used, but the racket is not a
17:47
string racket. It's a solid like Styrofoam type
17:51
racket. You can play off the walls.
17:56
It's got glass on either side. Ours are outdoors.
18:00
You might be looking at something that's inside, I'm not
18:02
sure, but it's got fencing on the sides, glass on the either
18:07
end. And you can play off of all of
18:09
that and you can even play outside the court if you can get
18:12
it and get it back in play. But it it's a really fun sport
18:17
because it's done the the base of it is turf with sand
18:21
underneath it. So for people who were really
18:24
competitive in squash and the hard court is just too hard on
18:28
the joints anymore, It's a sport that's, you know, a little more
18:33
forgiving, but yet you can still have that competitive edge that
18:36
you love about squash. It's good for aging folks like
18:41
myself. It is, but you know what, all
18:43
age. We had our first junior
18:44
championship this past summer so it's it's all aged.
18:48
Good for all ages, Yeah. And then a couple of other
18:52
things. You said a little bit earlier
18:55
there's no houses around your properties.
18:59
Why did you make a point of pointing that out?
19:02
Because some places, like in Florida in particular, a
19:07
neighborhood will be built around with the Country Club as
19:11
an amenity and you have to own a house to be a member there.
19:14
Got it. OK, here there are houses around
19:17
us, but the club doesn't own any of those.
19:20
And, and those members, maybe, I mean the people who own those
19:23
houses may be members here, but they don't have to have a
19:27
membership to buy the house, if that makes sense.
19:29
Gotcha. OK.
19:34
Oh, there was something else that you said.
19:36
It's going to come back to me the OK.
19:40
And yeah. And then that, that sort of
19:41
leads into the the whole membership structure, right?
19:43
You're you're it it it's not the people who live around or own
19:48
homes because that's not part of your part of the Philadelphia
19:52
Cricket Club. It's people who have elected to
19:54
pay the initiation, pay the annual duties.
19:57
Yeah. OK, understood.
19:58
OK, OK. Say, explain to us what the top
20:02
50 Platinum Club is, Linda. We're the ranking organization
20:07
in our industry and it's you apply and then all GMs and
20:15
presidents of other clubs vote on the top clubs and they do it
20:21
every two years. They also own the Platinum Clubs
20:24
of the World. When we started, when I started
20:29
in 2012, we weren't in the top 100.
20:35
We didn't have sounded that we had a bad reputation, but we
20:39
didn't have a great one. It's like people just didn't
20:42
really know about us, even though we're the oldest Country
20:44
Club in America. And since then we, I think our
20:49
last ranking was #36 which is pretty impressive over, you
20:54
know, I, it's 13 year time frame.
20:58
We've really grown in the industry.
20:59
We've hosted some events that have highlighted us as a place
21:03
to be, most recently the the truest PGA Championship.
21:11
And so, so our reputation has grown.
21:15
And then Platinum clubs of the world, we were always an
21:19
honorary mention. And these last two times we we
21:22
jumped in and at 1:20 the score, the rankings are going again
21:28
right now it's every other year also.
21:31
So I'm hoping that we jump up a little bit more on I'm a little
21:34
competitive if you can talk. And and what are they looking
21:38
at? Is this sort of like quality of
21:40
the facility? Is it revenue numbers like
21:43
what's important to them? It's it's quality of facilities,
21:47
it's staff, it's members. They have a whole list of
21:51
criteria. I don't.
21:53
Like who your members are or a number of members?
21:56
Reputation of the members, you know, how they give back to the
22:01
community, how we get back to the game of golf, to some of the
22:06
racket sports. I mean, we host a lot of other
22:09
tournaments to like the Chestnut Hole Classic is a squash women's
22:13
squash tournament. We've got a, Oh my gosh, I'm
22:18
going to miss what ranking she is.
22:19
We have a member who's like highly ranked in the squash
22:22
professional world, which is so fun to watch her play.
22:27
We recently hosted the Afton Nationals, which is the platform
22:33
tennis organization. We have 7 courts for that as
22:38
well. So, you know, we we give back to
22:43
all of the sports that you know, we.
22:45
Have when you say you give back to, you mean like hosting these,
22:48
these tournaments, these events? Yeah.
22:51
OK. And you mentioned, you know the
22:54
big investments that you guys have made, number of capital
22:57
projects over the years as a big reason for the increase in
23:02
memberships, the increase in revenue, obviously the
23:05
restructuring of how the memberships work.
23:07
Anything else that you give credit to for that increase in
23:11
revenue? Yeah, it give a lot of credit to
23:15
our staff because no matter how good our facilities are, it's
23:20
our staff that create the experience.
23:23
And I think our team is, I'm sure everybody does, but I think
23:29
our team is amazing to watch them work together.
23:34
It's so this past March we had the APTA National Tournament
23:42
National Championship, and I'm standing in the middle is
23:45
freezing. It's a winter sport, standing in
23:48
the middle of the parking lot, our village that we created for
23:52
the fan experience, and I'm just watching our team and it's like
23:56
watching a ballet. They're so well coordinated.
24:00
They pay attention to every single little detail and the
24:05
reviews that we got from hosting that tournament from both fans
24:08
and players. They're like this is the best
24:11
tournament we've ever had. Everything was taken care of.
24:15
The food and beverage was amazing.
24:17
The staff was so accommodating. Everything they needed, they
24:20
were right on top of it. They do that stuff every day for
24:24
our members, day in and day out. They they're just amazing and
24:28
they care so much that the experience that the members have
24:34
when they come here, it feels like home.
24:37
And because of that, I think our membership has grown.
24:42
When we took over in 2018, the three of us, they call us the
24:47
three headed monster who? Were the other two.
24:52
So Jim Smith Junior is the Director of golf and he's the
24:57
Flour Town General Manager. And then Dan Mearsman is our
25:01
Director of Grounds and he is our Chief Planning Officer.
25:06
So he's kind of the project manager for a lot of our capital
25:09
projects. So the three of us together are
25:13
the most tenured. I'm the least tenured of the
25:15
three and I've been here for 13 years, if that gives you a
25:18
picture. But one of the things that we
25:21
felt was most important is kind of that Richard Branson invest
25:27
in your employees and they'll take care of your customers.
25:30
We fully believed in that and they just started immediately.
25:36
We look every year we're like, how can we improve our benefits?
25:40
Are we paying the right rates? Are we at or better at the
25:44
market? Let's build this enrichment fund
25:50
so that we can thank our staff on the fly when we need to.
25:54
When they go above and beyond, we take that enrichment,
25:59
enrichment budget and allocated out to each department based on
26:03
the number of employees that they have.
26:06
And every year we're like, have you spent your money?
26:08
Have you spent your money? Make sure you're taking care of
26:11
your employees. What does that mean?
26:13
How would they spend the money? What?
26:14
What's the enrichment fund used for?
26:16
They could use it for say, hey, take your wife out to dinner.
26:20
Here's a gift card to this local restaurant.
26:25
It could be a cash, it could be here's $50.00 in cash.
26:29
Thank you so much for going above and beyond.
26:32
It could just be, you know, a Starbucks gift card.
26:36
You've really been killing it lately.
26:38
Thank you. Any way that they can think of
26:41
to personalize a thank you. And it can't just be, you know,
26:45
OK, everybody gets $100. It's it's not that it's, it's
26:49
very personal per person. We do things like celebrate
26:55
milestones, whether it's holding a baby shower for someone who's
26:59
about to have a baby, giving wedding gifts for those who are
27:06
about to get married. Yeah.
27:10
Just anything that we can do to kind of personalize and help
27:18
people grow. That's where we focus.
27:22
And it's, it's built a culture. We survey our our employees
27:29
twice a year and we use the Net Promoter score.
27:32
I'm sure you're familiar with that.
27:34
Yeah. But go ahead and explain it
27:35
please. So Net Promoter score is on a
27:37
scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend PCC as a place
27:42
to work? And so nines and 10s are your
27:49
promoters, Sevens and eights are just kind of a moderate number
27:56
and then six and below are your detractors.
27:58
So you take all the nines and 10's, the percentage of those
28:01
minus the percentage of the six and unders, and that's your Net
28:05
Promoter score. Anything above a 0 is OK.
28:09
Up to 30 is kind of good. And then you know it, it
28:14
continues to go up from there. When we started in 2018, that
28:19
score was an 8, which is, yeah, not great.
28:26
This past year, I think we had a score of 68.
28:33
Wow. And it really has been a series
28:35
of different, different things of how can we make work life
28:39
better? How can.
28:41
So we've done things like our managers, especially in food and
28:46
beverage and, and grounds and some of these other areas work
28:51
so many hours. The Country Club industry is
28:54
known for being a grind from a management standpoint.
28:57
I mean, you can easily work 6-7 days a week, 16 hours a day.
29:03
I mean, it can really be a grind.
29:07
We recognize that and said, no, we're going to go to four day
29:10
work weeks. So we need to expand our
29:13
management team to cut to make sure that we have the coverage.
29:16
And we did it. Now some of them still work 5,
29:20
but we make sure that they're not working more than 4550 hours
29:25
a week tops, which is unheard of in our industry.
29:32
We do things like this year, for instance, we have 5 paid
29:39
holidays. It's kind of annoying.
29:41
So we ran the numbers and said, OK, can we add another holiday?
29:46
Well, we're adding another holiday.
29:49
What's the new holiday? Memorial Day.
29:52
Can you believe we don't pay for Memorial Day?
29:54
That drives me crazy. So we're going to now.
29:57
Is the club closed on Memorial Day?
29:59
No, no. So how is it a holiday for the
30:02
employees? Because they get paid the extra
30:06
time for it. So our part time people get paid
30:08
time and 1/2 for working the holiday and our full time people
30:11
get another 8 hours. OK.
30:15
And then our salaried people would essentially get another
30:18
day off at a different time, so. Sorry, Linda, I, I just thinking
30:27
through this, do you think that spending more on the employees
30:32
there's it's a, it's a causation or, or is it a correlation?
30:37
It just happens to coincide with the revenues increasing because
30:41
you guys are doing, you know, all these big capital projects
30:44
to draw new members, you change that membership fee structure.
30:49
How, how convinced are you that the extra money that you're
30:52
spending on your team is contributing to the revenue
30:55
growth? I'm pretty convinced we've been
31:01
doing it for a long time, reinvesting in our staff,
31:05
creating a better work life balance.
31:07
It's reduced our turnover in hospitality turnover especially
31:13
in food and beverage can be hundred 120%.
31:19
Our full time staff is the our turnover is about 25%.
31:25
So I knowing our members again creates that sense of home for
31:31
them. This is like a second home to
31:33
them. So when they're recognized, when
31:35
they come in, when they know what drink they like and can you
31:40
know it, it just it makes them feel special.
31:44
And that type of feeling and experience I believe has helped
31:48
grow our membership. Yes, the facilities are nice.
31:51
Yes, those are important too. But I think the experience that
31:55
they have when when they're here that they received from our
31:59
staff has really helped grow the membership.
32:02
I really do. That's powerful.
32:06
Yeah. And I mean, the other point of
32:07
evidence is the increase in the employee Net Promoter promoter
32:11
score, right? People are happier working
32:15
there. And it makes me think, is there
32:17
a work equivalent of happy wife, happy life?
32:21
You're familiar with that, right?
32:23
And I've got a wonderful wife and you know, she would probably
32:27
turn it around on me and, you know, whatever the happy
32:29
husband, happy life thing is. But but what's the work version
32:33
of that? Is there one like happy staff
32:36
happy? Say it again.
32:39
Happy staff, happy customers. Here we go in our case members
32:44
and and Richard Branson. I have to credit him with that.
32:47
He posts that everywhere, but it's true.
32:51
You know, we we spend a lot of money on training on making
32:54
people happy, on helping them achieve their dreams, even if it
32:59
means that they're outside of here.
33:04
You know, that's one benefit about working in a club is that
33:07
you have such a wide network that if there's someone like,
33:10
who is going to school or pursuing a career that might be
33:15
outside of here, how can we help them get there?
33:18
And we do that all the time. What?
33:20
Does that look like? So I got a particular girl who
33:23
was working for me in member billing.
33:26
So smart, so smart. And she's like, well, I'm
33:32
thinking about going back to school.
33:33
And I'm like, well, what is it that you want to do?
33:36
She's well, I'm thinking about risk management.
33:38
I'm like, oh, I have to introduce you to our broker,
33:43
Johnson, Kendall Johnson. They're an amazing company.
33:45
I think you would love working there.
33:48
That'll get you to where you want to go.
33:50
And she's like, really? I introduced her.
33:53
She's working there now and she's doing great.
33:57
You know, seeing people succeed, even if it means that they're
34:01
outside of here. Is it just such a great feeling
34:05
for us? We're we're absolutely going to
34:09
do it because we want to help you achieve your dreams.
34:12
Because then you're going to say, Oh my gosh, my experience
34:15
at PCC was so great. Here's what they did for me.
34:20
You know, I was fortunate enough to have somebody kind of infuse
34:24
that lesson into me, I don't know, 2025 years ago, you know,
34:28
as I've owned different companies over the years and I
34:31
invest in my team, I'm always worried about my team getting
34:34
poached or leaving or, you know, I, I put a lot of time and
34:39
energy into training them and, you know, cultivating them and,
34:41
you know, sending them to courses in education and
34:45
somebody sort of flipped the script for me and they're like,
34:47
no, that's the time to celebrate.
34:48
Like they've graduated, like you have helped them into the next
34:53
phase of their life. And, you know, it, it shifted me
34:56
from sort of this, if you want to call it a fixed mindset into
35:00
more of a growth mindset and like be happy for that person,
35:03
celebrate for that person that this new opportunity, this new
35:07
door has opened for them. And that was a, that was for me
35:11
was a big energy chef and being able to, you know, and today I'm
35:16
still in touch with folks that worked for me, you know, 20
35:20
years ago. And it's like, oh, hey, what's
35:22
going on? And sometimes they reach out for
35:23
a reference or, you know, some career advice and I'm it's, it's
35:26
just a much better feeling that way.
35:28
That's what I'm hearing you say too.
35:29
Absolutely completely agree. There's nothing more rewarding
35:34
for me than to see someone else reach their goals because I
35:38
can't always provide for them, right?
35:40
I might not have a position that allows them to grow into it, so
35:45
if I can help them get to 1, that's just fantastic for me.
35:50
You've been in the hospitality and sports space for decades
35:55
now. Are there particular shifts or
35:58
innovations that you've noticed that I don't know what kind of
36:02
surprised you over time? I don't know if there's really
36:08
anything that surprises me. Technology is interesting for
36:12
me, especially country clubs. They don't like to spend money
36:17
on technology. They'd rather spend money on the
36:19
golf course, and I only get that.
36:23
But in today's world, it's almost expected that you would
36:28
have great technology like their companies have.
36:32
You know, our members have, you know, they're using Oracle or
36:35
NetSuite or all of these really expensive types of software.
36:41
And we don't have that here because we spend more money on
36:45
the golf course than we do on technology.
36:47
So the club is always behind from a technology standpoint.
36:52
So trying to find innovation in a price point that adds value to
37:00
our members is, is something that I'm constantly looking at.
37:04
That's probably the biggest area where, you know, I constantly
37:10
get surprised of, you know, well, why can't you just do
37:15
this? Well, I understand it seems
37:16
simple, but our system doesn't work that way and trying to
37:21
provide that service of we call it reducing friction.
37:27
Where is there friction and how can we make that easier, whether
37:30
it's for the employee, for each other, for the members, whatever
37:35
it may be. So constantly trying to stay up
37:39
and, and AI is really interesting for me.
37:44
So I'm trying to just learn as much as I can right now to see
37:47
how that might eventually apply to us.
37:53
So I think that's going to probably be a big shift.
37:56
One thing that we are doing, not necessarily from an AI
38:00
standpoint, but I mean kind of our ground Superintendent, Dan
38:05
Mearsman, I mentioned to him before, we're one of the first
38:09
clubs to bring in autonomous mowers.
38:12
Wow. Yeah, so and we constantly are,
38:17
each year we're increasing our fleet a little bit more and it
38:21
doesn't necessarily decrease our staff, but what it does is it
38:25
allows them to shift to things that are more detail oriented
38:31
like cutting around some of the sand traps that require much
38:36
more detail and a human touch to do.
38:39
The autonomous mowers will will take care of the big spaces that
38:43
you know you don't have to have. The fairways they're.
38:47
Interesting. But the humans are still doing
38:49
the the Greens and yeah, the rough and all of.
38:52
The detail kind of work that a machine can do.
38:58
So it's interesting to see how to start incorporating some of
39:02
those things. You know, there's some some
39:05
innovation like that coming out in kitchens.
39:10
We don't have any of it yet, but we're keeping an eye on, you
39:14
know, kind of what's available and and what we can use.
39:18
There's there's no doubt that the labor market is tough,
39:23
especially after COVID, a lot of people left the hospitality
39:26
industry. And so we have to think of ways
39:31
that other than just pay who attract good talent.
39:38
So, yeah, that's probably going to be the biggest shift in our
39:42
industry in the next several years.
39:44
You said that AI is really interesting to you at this
39:47
point. Are you finding ways to leverage
39:50
it in your work yet? Not yet.
39:54
We we installed a new phone system that was supposed to have
39:59
an AI agent. It didn't work the way I wanted
40:02
it to and it really frustrated our members, so I turned it off.
40:07
I'm hoping that technology will get a little bit better and, and
40:14
I just, I'm, I'm still learning how it can apply to what we do.
40:21
So I, I'm just not quite sure yet.
40:23
I'm still learning in that area. Fair enough.
40:27
What is the future of the Philadelphia Cricket Club look
40:30
like? What are you excited about
40:32
that's on the horizon? New projects, new member drives,
40:37
new sports? I don't know.
40:39
Yeah. So we are in the process of
40:42
building a golf performance center and updating our range,
40:47
which is super exciting. We're also going to be
40:50
renovating our clubhouse at the Wiss Hicken Golf Course, which
40:56
is like an old farmhouse. It's incredibly inefficient and
41:03
I think after this renovation at all, the flow will be much
41:06
better. So I'm really excited about
41:09
that. I think that's really going to
41:11
drive the membership. We have a strong demand for golf
41:15
membership and you know, I think that's only going to enhance the
41:20
experience by adding those things.
41:23
Yeah, let's shift gears for a moment, Linda.
41:25
I'd like to dive into a big challenge that you've overcome
41:30
in your life, whether it's on the personal side of things,
41:33
professional side. How'd you get through that, and
41:36
what did you learn in the process?
41:39
Yeah. I think one of the biggest
41:42
challenges I had was prior to taking the job here, I was going
41:47
through some personal things, a divorce namely, and was in a job
41:55
where I missed posting a payroll.
42:01
I've never made a mistake like that before.
42:05
And normally I don't allow my personal life to get in,
42:11
interfere with my professional life.
42:16
So that was hard. It was really hard and they
42:23
ended up letting me go, which I didn't feel was fair because my
42:28
audit was perfect and I caught it before then.
42:32
I mean, I caught it within a month of not doing it, you know?
42:38
But at the same time, I, I learned something didn't look
42:43
right and I knew it didn't look right.
42:47
And I, I need to trust my gut more when I noticed something
42:50
that is, is off because I'm so detail oriented, like I don't
42:55
miss stuff like that. And so trusting my gut more, I
43:02
like, I'm like, no, dig back into that.
43:04
That doesn't look right. Even with my team now I'm like,
43:08
that doesn't look right. Let's dig back in.
43:10
And most times they will find something that, oh, Yep, this
43:14
isn't an offer. This is, you know, that sort of
43:16
thing. So just that was really hard for
43:22
me. I can imagine.
43:24
I mean, you're going through a, a brutally rough, you know,
43:27
personal experience, you know, already figuring out how to get
43:32
up from that and dust yourself off.
43:34
And now, you know, the one part of your life where maybe you
43:37
were finding some solace, like where you felt like you were
43:39
still in control. You still kind of had your hands
43:42
on the reins because of every this tornado going on over here.
43:47
You missed something and so now you're really beating yourself
43:50
up on top of already feeling bad.
43:52
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
43:54
So it was rough, But, you know, I, I made it through, I became
44:01
better for it. I certainly didn't make that
44:04
mistake again. I don't think I've ever made the
44:06
same mistake twice, but I definitely didn't make that one
44:09
again. And I ended up in a really good
44:14
place and I've been here longer than I've ever been anywhere,
44:18
which is 13 years, and it's been really successful for me.
44:22
When you were going through kind of the worst of that, right, the
44:25
divorce, you know, kind of missing that thing at work and
44:29
then, you know, being let go ultimately, where did you go for
44:32
support? Who was there for you?
44:36
Actually, God, I, you know, I, I, I realized I was out of
44:47
control and I was trying to control everything.
44:52
And I said, what am I doing? I'm like, you know what, God
45:02
take this for me. And it's like the light went off
45:10
and then all of a sudden everything started to like just
45:16
fall into place the way it was supposed to.
45:20
And when you step back and look at how all of that happened, I
45:28
know 100% that that was God guiding me 100%.
45:34
And I, I've just, I've learned to, well, first of all, I start
45:41
my day with God every day without fail, no matter what I
45:45
do. First thing I do is the, the
45:49
daily readings, some Catholics. So I get them emailed every
45:53
morning. It's really easy and it helps me
45:59
recognize those God moments and they happen all the time, all
46:03
the time. And they certainly happened in
46:06
my life. The timing of getting the job
46:10
here, my Nell husband got a job with a member the same day.
46:16
I mean, everything just like fell into place and I'm like,
46:20
OK, this is where we're supposed to go.
46:25
So yeah, that's that's really what got me through it.
46:29
If I'm hearing you, it sounds like you almost needed to hit
46:32
sort of this bottom point of frustration and like you use the
46:37
words out of control and you're trying to control all of these
46:40
things that you couldn't. And and finally you let go.
46:44
You let go. You gave it to a higher power.
46:48
I can't do this. And that's when things started
46:51
to click for you. Is that is that what I'm
46:52
hearing? That's exactly what you're
46:54
hearing, yes. Yeah, it's really beautiful if
46:58
you look back at it. You know, and I think this is so
47:03
hard for people to do, especially when you're going
47:06
through the hard thing in the moment, right?
47:08
So it's like, you know, even if you have some perspective and
47:11
awareness, it's like, OK, and you can step back and ask
47:14
yourself the question, what am I meant to learn from this, right?
47:18
Because that's what I do when I'm going through something
47:19
hard. It's like, OK, where's the
47:21
lesson in this? How can I come out of this
47:24
struggle as a better person? It's really hard to have that
47:28
perspective in the moment, but so many times as I look in the
47:33
rearview mirror, what I went through, it's like, man, you
47:36
know what? In a weird way, I've got a sense
47:37
of gratitude for that because I've got a new perspective.
47:41
I it, it steered me in a different direction.
47:45
It caused me to meet this person.
47:47
It something happened that really changed the trajectory of
47:51
my life in a positive way. Yeah, absolutely it.
47:57
And and I think having that kind of rock bottom, if I will call
48:04
it that moment changed my perspective going forward.
48:10
So now when I see challenges, it's a little bit easier for me
48:15
to step back and say, OK, let's think about this for a minute.
48:19
Is there an opportunity here where I, I have a tendency to,
48:25
my husband gets upset with me a little, a little bit because
48:28
sometimes I'm too positive. Like I can always see a good in
48:33
something, whether it be a person or a situation or
48:36
whatever. And I think that moment where I
48:40
decided to just turn things over gave me that freedom to say, OK,
48:48
well, let's look, let's look at this for a minute.
48:50
I, I'm sure there's some good we can get out of this and, and
48:53
there always is if you look at it from that perspective.
48:56
But you, you have to train yourself to do that.
48:58
And you have to say, yeah, there's, there's a higher power
49:02
at work. And I know we can find an
49:05
opportunity in this. So.
49:08
That's, that's beautiful. I appreciate you sharing all
49:11
that. And you know, another question
49:14
I, I really like to ask is sort of the daily routines, the
49:17
habits like, and, and you said one of them, you're Catholic,
49:21
you do the readings every day to start your day.
49:23
Are there anything else that that's sort of in your routine
49:26
that kind of helps keep you on track, keep you centered?
49:31
I think that's the biggest one because it really starts my day
49:37
centered with God, but then also starting it with gratitude.
49:41
So I, I'm, it, it starts me looking at things in a positive
49:46
way. You know, other things are, you
49:50
know, just any other personal things are, you know, exercise,
49:55
healthy eating, you know, just trying to take good care of
50:00
myself so that I can be of service to others.
50:05
I love that. Linda, what would you
50:08
characterize as your superpower? I think understanding, I, I, I
50:16
seek to understand before being understood.
50:20
And what I mean by that is if I'm need something accomplished
50:25
and I, and I'm presenting this idea to whomever maybe it may
50:29
be, I want to know how that's going to affect them from an
50:34
operational standpoint. How much you know, are you able
50:39
to execute it at the highest level that you can?
50:42
And if not, why? So I want to understand before
50:47
just being understood, if that makes sense.
50:49
I don't like to just bark orders out to people without
50:55
understanding how it impacts them from an operational
50:58
standpoint, because I always want my team to be able to
51:03
operate at the highest level that they can.
51:05
And if I'm asking them to do something that won't let them do
51:08
that, I want to know why, because it might change my
51:13
perspective. How do you personally approach
51:18
personal development on a day-to-day or annual basis?
51:24
Like do you sort of start out like New Year's thinking, OK, I
51:28
want to learn about AI or I want to whatever it is?
51:31
Or is this sort of more of a a day-to-day approach?
51:34
How do you think about it? It's a little of both.
51:38
I I'm the type of person who does not like to be stagnant.
51:42
I I cannot do the same thing day in and day out.
51:46
Which is probably why I enjoy my job so much because it's not the
51:49
same every day. But when I feel like I have
51:55
education dollars that I'm allowed to use and I have a
51:59
certification. So I need some, you know,
52:01
industry education to keep that certification because I need
52:04
those education hours. But like last year I was like,
52:07
you know what? I need a different challenge.
52:11
So instead of going to conference, I decided to take a
52:15
class from Morton Business School called Women on Boards.
52:20
It was a week long class, fortyish women from all over the
52:26
world, different industries. It was so energizing and
52:32
learning from them, probably even more so than the class.
52:36
Not not to knock work in classes because it was great, but just
52:42
hearing the challenges of other women, hearing their experiences
52:46
in their industry or in their countries was just amazing.
52:50
And it was so energizing. And I just love stuff like that.
52:54
I love putting myself in situations that make me
52:58
uncomfortable because the growth happens when you're
53:02
uncomfortable. It doesn't happen when you're
53:04
comfortable. And so I'm a constant learner.
53:11
I learn about nutrition, about health, about exercise.
53:14
My husband's a CrossFit athlete, so I'm constantly looking at,
53:19
you know, recovery because we're older.
53:23
So I'm looking at recovery, I'm looking at nutrition.
53:26
I'm going down this rabbit hole of learning about peptides.
53:31
I mean, you just, I'm like all over the place when it comes to
53:36
things that I'm interested in and that keep me engaged.
53:40
But I will always be a lifelong learner and so I like constantly
53:46
challenging myself that way. Yeah.
53:49
And you hit on something that I'm a big proponent of as well,
53:52
and that's the support of peer groups, right?
53:54
Especially when you're kind of at the, the top, like you can
53:58
feel a little bit alone, a little bit isolating.
54:01
And so when you have the opportunity, you know, in that
54:04
course, a mastermind, A seminar, wherever it is, you can kind of
54:08
get together with more of like your tribe, your, your kinds of
54:11
people. You can share stories, you can
54:13
support each other. I've been through that.
54:15
Here's what I did. And then you're in the room with
54:17
really big thinkers. You're like, oh, and I thought I
54:20
was a big thinker. And I see what she's working on
54:23
and I gotta, I gotta up my game, right?
54:25
I love it. Yes, absolutely.
54:28
I love being around people who are going to challenge me to be
54:31
a better me, regardless of what area it's in.
54:35
Yeah. Any podcasts or books that are
54:38
favorites of yours that might want to recommend to our
54:41
listeners? So the best management book I've
54:45
ever read is called The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly.
54:50
Several of us on the team read it and we're like, that's it.
54:53
That's what we're trying to create here.
54:57
It's a story about helping employees reach their dreams and
55:03
IA couple. I guess it's been 2 weeks now.
55:07
I got a picture from my chef of an employee with keys to her
55:11
house and he said you help this happen and we played a very
55:19
minor role. Don't, don't get me wrong, she
55:22
worked hard to get it. But to see that dream fulfilled
55:26
and to get that text message, I was almost in tears.
55:31
I mean, that's what we're here for.
55:33
You know, that's that's the kind of thing that really makes me
55:37
feel like we're on the right direction.
55:39
And that book kind of describes that.
55:42
It's like if we were going to write a book of what we're
55:44
trying to create, that's it. But yeah, so that's probably the
55:48
best one I've read. Linda, I've just got one more
55:51
question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to
55:54
do a few housekeeping items here.
55:56
Anybody who wants to get in touch with Linda Cozy, you can
55:59
find her on LinkedIn. We'll have a link to that in the
56:02
show notes, but her last name is spelled COZZI.
56:06
Linda Cozy. You can find her on LinkedIn.
56:08
And as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to
56:11
benefits that won't hurt them financially and carries a
56:14
financial upside for the company, reach out to us at AD
56:17
back benefits.com. Finally, if you would take just
56:20
a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite
56:23
podcast app, you'll hold a special place in our hearts
56:25
forever. Now, Linda, last question for
56:29
you. You and I reconnect a year from
56:32
today and you are celebrating something big fist pumping in
56:36
the air, kind of celebrating. What's that big thing you hope
56:39
to be celebrating one year from now?
56:43
I hope that our Net Promoter score for our employees is even
56:47
higher than where it is now. I would love to see it.
56:50
Around 75 to 80 is where I'd love to get it.
56:54
I know, high dreams, but I would love to be celebrating that a
56:58
year from now. Linda Cozy from the Philadelphia
57:02
Cricket Club. I want to be the first to thank
57:04
you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
57:07
I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me,
57:10
it's been a pleasure. Folks, that's a wrap on another
57:13
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
57:15
Thanks for learning with us today.