Franchise QB

Episode 57: Dustin Miller- Founder and CEO, The Swing Bays

• Mike Halpern • Season 1 • Episode 57

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In this episode of the Franchise QB Podcast, host Mike Halpern interviews Dustin Miller, founder of The Swing Bays, a unique indoor golf facility. 

Dustin shares his journey from being a PGA professional to creating a community-focused golf instruction business. 

The conversation explores the innovative aspects of The Swing Bays, including its technology, community-building efforts, and plans for franchising. 

Takeaways

-Dustin Miller transitioned from PGA professional to business owner.
-The Swing Bays offers a unique indoor golf experience.
-Community engagement is key to the success of The Swing Bays.
-Technology plays a significant role in golf instruction.
-The golf industry has seen significant growth post-COVID.
-Revenue streams include memberships, club fittings, and instruction.
-Creating memorable experiences enhances customer loyalty.
-The future of Swing Bays includes a focus on community and service.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
01:13 Dustin Miller's Journey in Golf
03:09 The Swing Bays Concept Explained
05:52 Creating a Community at The Swing Bays
09:07 Technology and Corporate Events at The Swing Bays
12:00 The Golf Industry Landscape
14:12 Franchising The Swing Bays Concept
16:09 Revenue Streams for Franchise Owners
18:56 Operational Model and Member Experience
21:44 Hiring and Labor Model for Franchise Owners
25:02 Investment and Financial Expectations
27:53 Conclusion

https://theswingbays.com/

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Mike Halpern, CAFC
mike@franchiseqb.com

This is the Franchise QB Podcast, where we empower entrepreneurs to win big in franchising. We huddle up weekly to educate our audience about the most successful small business model ever created. Franchise it! Welcome to the Franchise QB podcast. I'm your host, Mike Halpern, a 20-year industry veteran and entrepreneur. My mission is for listeners to achieve their American dreams of creating wealth and independence through franchise ownership. Every week we speak with franchisees, franchisors or vendors that support the industry. Thank you for joining us and let's get started. Joining us in the huddle today is Dustin Miller, founder and owner of The Swing Bays. Welcome to the show, Dustin. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you having me today. Yeah, great to have you. So you're a PGA professional who started a golf lesson program way back in 2001. You taught golf lessons at clubs like Columbine Country Club, Lone Tree, and Black Bear, to name a few. Then alongside your wife, Brenna, you launched your own golf concept, The Swing Bays, that we're going to talk about today. back in 22. So after 20 years as a teaching pro, you launched a business. So take us way back to the beginning and tell us a little bit about your journey from when you became a teaching pro through the creation of The Swing Bays concept. Yeah. So, you know, when I went to college, you know, I went to college, I had two opportunities, either play golf or baseball. I chose the baseball route because I knew I was going to do golf for the rest of my life. A lot of my family's in the golf business. But I go there and you know, played baseball for a couple years and then finished up playing golf and then tried to chase golf, you know, on a professional level for two, three years. know, Brenna caddied for me and things like that, my wife. So that was a tough, tough stretch. And I knew that teaching was my passion and I loved the golf business and started out as an assistant professional and then went on as a head pro for about 10 years. And then my role was to teach and to play and to create great events. thing that I loved about it was being able to help people do something that I love. So for me, teaching has always been a huge passion of mine. And then all of a sudden, then I started my own teaching academies and things like that and got outside of the, you know, being as a head golf professional and saw this niche of the indoor scene, not really capitalized at the time. Now you see these places popping up. all of the time it seems like. And my thing is, is I just wanted to have something that is super service driven, that's gonna be something where people get results and they're gonna see results when they come in here into my business. And I wanted to differentiate it, and I know we'll talk about that a little bit more today, but I wanted to create something to where people can come in and it has a cool community to it, it has a great feel, people can have this place that they're super proud of, they can. wear the gear, they can be proud of what they're doing and all of those types of things. And that's how Swing Bays came about. Yeah, that's really cool. Appreciate the backstory. And it's really neat when you can take 20 years of experience, some things you probably like, some things you didn't like, and take all those learnings and kind of package that up and take a shot and kind of create your own business. what is, and we're going to get into the details, but what is The Swing Bays for someone that's not familiar with the concept? Yeah, so the swing bays, I'm based in Parker, Colorado, 15 minutes south of downtown Denver. And I've got about a 5,500 to 6,000 square foot building where I'm at in more of like a strip mall location. And I six Trackman bays where I'm at, one private bay that I teach out of and we do fittings and things like that out of there as well. We have a small bar in here as well where we can serve alcohol. We don't do any food. We're not in the food-tainment type of business. That's not what we're doing. We have full club repair, full on equipment for instruction on golf instruction. And then we have everything that we have for club fittings as well. And then we have a full-time fitness guy. in here that we do a ton of TPI workouts, just Titleist Performance Institute. So it's kind of your one-stop shop. We've got retail, everything in here. And that's how I wanted to differentiate my facility in regards to a lot of these other ones. feels like you're going with your member. Let's dig into that a little bit because I am curious how yours differentiates from other indoor golf simulation venues. And you touched on a few things, but Can you talk about like the golf instruction and the fitness? Like how is that different than what someone would normally expect in a similar venue? Yeah. So if they come in here, swing bays where we're at, you know, I teach about 50 to 60 private lessons a week. Those are all pretty much our lessons. a lot of those are tied in to where we tie them in with the fitness component of it. A lot of those people are coming in and getting a program of an assessment. So you're coming in, you know, Hey, I'm hitting a lot of shots to the right or My right hip is not capable of doing this. So then you get, we take you, myself, and then some of my TPI instructors will go into it. We'll build a plan for you. That plan is gonna have a clear objective for about two weeks is what we do those plans for. After those two weeks, we reassess and then we move on to something else and what we keep trying to do. what it does is it keeps everybody engaged. but it also gives them something to work on. All of a sudden they're not in a lesson with us, they're not in a fitness session. They can come in and they can practice their game and look at the numbers off of Trackman and all of those types of things. Very cool. So you mentioned a moment ago about a community. So how is Swing Bays kind of creating a community that might be different than what else is on the market? Yeah, so that's the thing where I take huge value and and take a big, know, have a lot of pride in creating that community feel. So some of the things that we do, somebody joins membership, we want to know about them. We want to know everything about them, just like you're joining a, you know, high-end club. So for us, we're going to know what's their glove size, what's their shoe size, what's their birthday, what's their anniversary, what are the things that they like to do. for example, I'm playing, you know, I want to know what your music is. You're, you know, if you're a Van Morrison fan, Van Morrison is going to be playing in your session. So giving them that feel of when they're in here, they feel like it's it's at a home type of a place. So the things that we do community wise is we have, you know, amazing couples nights. We have all kinds of different types of programming, programs that we do. But the community feel of it is keeping everybody engaged. We want to make certain that when they're in here that they're, they feel super welcome. And all of a sudden we have, you know, club repair and all of that stuff in the back to where if you need to get your clubs re-gripped, you get them done in here. If you need to get a new set of clubs, have a full-time fitter in here. If you need to get your fitness, fitness is in here. Instruction is in here. So it's kind of a one-stop shop. Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome. So you mentioned a little bit ago about technology. you have proprietary technology that you use to engage with your customers to kind of interact with that community? Yeah, so we have, right now we definitely have an app in the work right now that's being worked on. And that's going to have a lot of stuff that's going to have for instruction-wise, communication-wise to a lot of our members and clients that we have throughout the day. Right now what we do teaching wise is we use Trackman software. we're full Trackman facility at the moment. And then for a lot of the components of like video software and things like that, we use V1 program and then we use all like the V1 plate forces as well so we can see what they're doing for how much pressure is on their like right foot, left foot, things like that. Very cool. So you guys get a little technical with. All the nuance of how to hit a golf ball, right? So, obviously this is like a B2C model, but do you have corporate events? Do you have things for companies to come in and run out some space? Does that, is that part of the model? We do. And I think that's a huge, like a huge component that, you know, a lot of these places, you know, I don't want to just have it to where, you know, we're getting individuals coming in each and every day. I want it to have it be a facility where it feels like, man, we can, we can bring a group in here. and it feels awesome. There's so many things that can happen. So having six bays, we can have five to six people in each one of those bays, and you can have a ton of things going on. Then you have the bar that we have. People can hang out there. Then I have about 1,100 square foot putting green here as well. You can chip and putt. You can have those types of things. But we have numerous corporate events that we do, and the way that I like to do them, again, is the programming part of make the programming just awesome. And we just had one of the other like last week where we did it like as a like a wedge fit night. So we had this corporate group about about 100 people in here. Each person came in with whatever wedges that they had. We did a clinic with them on on how to gap fit your wedges. Talk about what the difference of like the bounce and then the leading edge of a club. And then that night, what happened is we We sent home, I think about 120 some wedges that night we sold in this event where we have somebody in the back custom stamping the back of their wedges and they're walking out with three custom wedges at the end of the night. Really creative. Awesome. So it sounds like the like swing base is for everybody. Is that correct? Like, you be any type of golfer, young, old, avid beginner and kind of find a place for yourself in the facility? Absolutely. that's the, know, I always go back to what my core values are. You know, I want it to be a place that anybody can come, anybody's welcome. It's just, have, I think three or four guys that are right now on, yeah, three that's on the senior tour that practice out of here in the winter time, which is really cool. And then we have, you know, tons of beginners in here as well. We have, mornings with mom, like a mom's drop off program that we have where like eight ladies will come in, they'll get a little fitness, get some golf, mimosas to go in the morning. So you have those types of events and then you have your events where, you know, a bunch of buddies want to come out and play in one of our leagues. So it's, it's fun for everybody that comes in here. Yeah, I was going to ask, so what's the visit frequency? Like, do you find that you're Community is coming in weekly multiple times a week every other week like how sticky is it? How often do they want to be there? Yeah, so we're busy quite often, you know, we're we're always pretty busy but in the later months for us, know here in Denver, know, you look at November on you know, there's you're always gonna be able to play golf, know outside Through the winter months, but not every day But we're busier definitely in the in the winter months, but right now we're averaging between probably four to seven days per visit. So say if you're member in here, you're coming in about every four days. It's what our members are showing us right now. Very cool. And give us a scope of the golf industry. I know it's enormous, like, is it a billion dollar industry, a $10 billion industry? What's that look like? And how much does the average golfer spend annually on the sport? Yeah. mean, the golf industry, you know, you look at, you look at COVID, COVID just made it absolutely explode even more than what it was. Had the tiger effect back in the early 2000s and then kind of hit a little bit of a wall for a while. then COVID, you know, and it spiked it up even more right now. But that's the thing that you look at, like overall in general, people and people looking for golf, they're, they're looking to spend money. Like they want to have the best instructors, they want to have the best technology, they want to have the best equipment, they want have the best apparel. So when it comes to that golfers are a lot like parents, they're going to spend whatever they need to just like they would on their kids. know, their kids programs are a ton of money and it takes a ton of time. You know, with golf, the beauty thing is with swing bays and the indoor facility, it doesn't take you four hours to play. doesn't, you don't have to go out and... The heat and play, you don't have to go out in the cold 72 degrees in here all the time. Play 18 holes of golf in less than two and a half hours. But people are gonna pay for it and they're gonna be proud of what they get out of those things just in the golf world right now. Yeah, that's a pretty big observation. know... people that have like young kids and stuff, it's hard to get away for four hours or five hours, depending on a weekend round of golf. So having this as an alternative is a really cool thing. So I know there's a big difference between running your independent business and you're an early stage franchise or you partnered with France Smart, a prominent franchise sales organization. Why did you decide to franchise the concept this year? Did you have like customers coming up to you and saying, Hey, this is really cool. Is it a franchise or Like what sparked your interest in kind of flipping that switch into franchising? Yeah, it's pretty unique actually, know, kind of just in general, like swing bass itself was something that, you know, I've been, I told you earlier that I've been looking to want to do and just, just saw this kind of hole. Like it's just a spot that's really not, not tapped completely in the way that, you know, that I feel that we're doing it. And so I've taught off of Trackman, like I said, for 10, 12 years. and was really trying to figure out what the name was going to be of Swing Bays. And so one night I get an email from Trackman and says, come swing some clubs at one of your favorite bays. It's like, that's it, it's going to be Swing Bays. Grew up a big Arnold Palmer fan, wanted to have a vintage flag on there, that's how it came about. And at the time, you know, I just wanted to see what this business could become. And it saw how, you know, the success that it's became and things like that. And never really had the... the mindset really at the time to franchise. I've had numerous groups that have come up to me in a small amount of time that were open that wanted to buy it, just in general. I'm like, man, we might have something here. And then got approached, a mutual friend introduced me to Dan Roe of Fransmart. And for me, was like, it just made complete sense. mean, seeing what he's done in the franchise world and... and Frans Mart and having somebody believe in the concept that I have and then having that mutual connection is something that I really feel like I want to take what we have in this community here right now and sprinkle it around the nation and then hopefully at some point in time globally and have this feel everywhere because I think it's really cool. that's awesome. I think you're a real capable hands and doing this on your own would be a Herculean task, having professionals that have been there, done it, time tested. It's great. So you can focus on your business and let your partner help you with the development. So how does a franchise owner in your system, how do they generate revenue? What are the revenue streams in the model? Yeah. So that's one of the things, again, the differentiating model that I believe that Swing Bays is, offsetting some of these other places. So I didn't want a place to just come in and you hit balls. Like I don't want to just rely on having to have every bay filled at all time. So what we have is we have a great membership model right now. We have a bunch of members that are paying a monthly membership fee. So those are coming in and those are for us. We are, our retention rate on that, we've only lost about less than 4 % of people that. have signed up from day one. They've all stayed stuck with us here. So the membership model is awesome. We know that that money is coming in each and every month. Two is we do club sales. We have the club fittings. So club fittings, that's another part of, hey, we're gonna gain the trust of this client and individual that's coming in. We have club repair. So club repair, you need to get your grips redone. You need a new shaft or things like that. We do that as well. We have a bar. Again, the bar is not a huge thing and that's not what we bank on, but that's a spot where people just come in and hang out. We have instruction, so we have a ton of teaching going on here as well. And then we have the fitness model as well. So people can come in, utilize it like a gym that's for golf and those types of things. And then we have apparel. So we do a ton of special orders for apparel, for clothes, for shoes. We have accounts with pretty much all of these companies. And then we have... You know, the other thing I was going back to on the club fittings, we have a ton of fit days in here. So we have accounts with all of the major companies like that. And we're doing a great business with those types of things. And with our model, we just get to the point now where we're going to stay open 24 hours. We're going to be open our normal time with our giving customer service and all of those types of things. But on our off times when we're closed, we're going to offer that 24 hour model now where people can come in, the members can come in. a different, it's a different membership tier just because we needed more time and we needed, we need to add to that because it's a huge value for them. And we're getting a bunch of people that are wanting to do that as well. So how's that work? The members will have a key fob they can use to kind of come in and come and go as they please. Yeah, it'll be on their phone and that's the things that are in the works with our app that we're developing at the time. But it'll be on their phone. They can come in. If they're a member, they can come in here. They can tap it on one of the doors. They come in. Everything will be set up wise for them when they're in here. They reserve their bay just like they would if we're open. We don't have to staff it at night or anything like that or early morning. So it's just another revenue source that's going to be taking place. Yeah, I know that's a big value proposition for the members. I interviewed the CEO of HotWorx yesterday and same deal, like they're open 24 seven and members love it. Like they grow membership tremendously just because of the access. I mean, one thing about you guys that I found interesting is you're not trying to be like all things to all people, like a top golf where you have this full, you know, food and beverage program and it becomes this complicated model where you're not, taking the focus off of the golf. But I did notice something that was kind of cool. You guys, do fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. And I want to hear the story behind that. When my sons were coming up in Little League, they went to a private hitting coach and it was actually, he kind of gutted his basement and turned it into some hitting stations. And his wife would make these fresh baked cookies. And every time he went there, the whole place just smelled amazing. And that's like, you my kids are, you know, 16 and 18 now, but they still remember. going over to Coach Mick's house and smelling the cookies. So tell me about the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies in your place. Yeah, it goes back to the sensory feels, right? Like when you come in here, I want you to walk in and I you to can't wait to come in here. Then when you're getting ready to leave, I can't, I want you to have that feeling like you can't wait to get back there. And those are the things, the memory part of it. That's what we're trying to create. We're trying to create memories and those things each and every day with everybody that comes through our doors. So being from Colorado, You know, I snowboard. Beaver Creek's one of my favorite places. And Beaver Creek has fresh homemade cookies at three o'clock. My kid and I have two kids and it's something they look forward to. They love that. So in here, you you look at some of the golf courses, you look like Muir Field where Jack Nicklaus is at in Ohio. Milkshake is the thing. Out here in Castle Pines Golf Club, it's a milkshake. So we're sitting here for swing bays and thinking, man, we do... Not to sound arrogant of what we do, but we do service really well. We do it awesome. And that's one of the things we pride ourselves in. And I wanted to have something else that's a lasting impression when people come in here. And it's one of those things. It's like you walk walking one of our employees walking around with fresh baked cookies, you know, every few hours, people look forward to it. They're excited about it. And they're like, man, this is cool. And it gives it away for again, our employees is another way to interact with. with the members and the clients that we have in here each and every day and strike up a conversation and those types of things. again, it's just one of those many things. Very cool. So you mentioned an employee there a moment ago. What does the labor model look like for a franchise owner? Who are they hiring once they go into training or they're on the other side of training? Who do they need to kind of run a Swing Bays facility? Yeah. mean, first and foremost, somebody that's service oriented. That's key, because again, once you get members and clients that are in here that are trusting you and putting your faith in what you do, it makes it nice, because those are easy ways to create sales. again, it goes back to the raving fans book. Creating a raving fan is something that's going to make people want to be in here at all times. But the model for that is really simple. We only have one to two people that are in here at a time. No need any more than two people max. So I have a general manager that's in here and then the rest of them are an hourly type of employee, but they're people that buy into what we do and they wanna, the kids that I have that are coming in or kids that are in like the PGM program, professional golf management program, and they, you know, their goal is to open a swing base at some point in time, So is the general manager different than the PGA teaching pro? Those are two different roles? It can be, it doesn't have to be. You know, for me, mine is somebody that's in a golf management program right now. So again, the cool thing is the old adage of getting in the golf business, you're like, man, you're gonna work a million hours a week and you have to do all this type of stuff. And here that model is completely changed. Like I want it to be somebody that's geared for golf, that loves golf, that loves service, that wants to be really service oriented. But it doesn't have to be somebody that's in it just strictly that wants to teach or anything like that. But they need to, again, learn how to run a business and how to operate a business. Yeah, you just kind of led into my next question. Like, do you have, you know, like a avatar for the ideal candidate to be a franchise owner with Swing Bays? And kind of the second question on there is, can they be semi-absentee or do you require that owner to be, you know, in the store all the time? Yeah, no, it's so, so you look at, for example, I would, perfect candidate is going to, again, be somebody that's going to create a space that's going to be service oriented. And then I think they can look at it in two ways. know, I think, you know, I have a bunch of people that I know that are like, man, I would love to open the swing base that are not in golf, but you get the right team around you and put the right team around you, then, then that works. As long as again, that they're business oriented and can run a business. have so many programs and things like that, that are already in place that when somebody, some franchisee takes over another location, they're going to have a, they're going to that's already there for them, but we're gonna create. So it doesn't have to be somebody that's in golf. The cool thing is, is we're a PGA recognized facility and we'll be a PGA recognized facility under my umbrella throughout all of these locations that are open. So you have all of these individuals that are applying to get into the golf business. All of these schools now that are creating these classes that are, it's a PGM program. professional golf management. So there's a bunch of those kids that are out there that want to get an internship. And they don't all want these internships now at these high end clubs, a lot of them want to come into an indoor location because these are hot right now. And that's what we're trying to capitalize on. You know, so you don't have to, your owner operator doesn't have to be like me, doesn't have to be person that's been in golf. They can hire the right people. It makes it really simple for that transition and if they're not Yeah, it's also nice having an indoor facility regardless of the climate. You know, I'm heading into the winter here on the East coast. You guys are out there in Arizona. It's like, it doesn't matter what the weather's like or what the climate's like, you're in business, which is pretty predictable. so let's talk about getting into the deal. Like it's a pretty wide range on the item seven from two 26 to nine 24. And I get it. It's a different size. You know, it be different size facilities. different areas have different construction costs, but like, do we have a sweet spot for what we would expect a franchise owner to spend on like FF &E, build out the whole kit and caboodle? Yeah, and that's one of the things, know, that goes back to your other question with Dan and Fransmart, you know, that was with them, you know, they're going to be dealing with a lot of all of that type of stuff, right? They're going through looking at all of the locations, like what are penetration plan of the real estate? Where is the hotspots gonna be? And then how can we work with getting more tenant improvement for those franchisees that are looking in there and those building in those spaces? So I can tell you off of my experience, off of where I'm at, of what I've done. Opening a business, I'm at about 400 to 415 to open this place. That's with all technology, everything in here. And that number, your ROI number off of that, that number is going to, doing our programs and what we have and pre-selling memberships and things like that, you're going to see a good ROI off of that number. It's not a place that, where you have some of these facilities that are over a million dollar build-outs, like man, it's going to take a ton of time to get that money back. Yeah, exactly. No, at $400,000, give or take, that's going to give a quicker return and I could see the attract. And it allows owners to scale. So you can find some high caliber multi-unit owners. Exactly. And I know it depends on real estate, but it sounds like Fransmart is going to step up and assist you with site selection, lease negotiation, construction support. What are we setting expectations from the time they sign on the dotted line? on the franchise agreement to when they launch. Is this like a six to 12 month process? Yeah, think what you should look at there is probably between four to seven months. Okay, very cool. And are there any item 19 financial performance representations you can share with us today? Yeah, that's pretty much more on the Fran, like Fransmart side of it. Okay. Those types of things. can get the FDD and look at the number. Yeah, you know, I know where I'm at, you know, and just the overall sales of what I do and of those. But yeah, that's gonna be more off of the Fransmart stuff on there. Very cool. So we've covered a ton of territory today. Anything else you wanna add to the mix before we wrap up? No, I'm just, for me, I'm excited to let people understand what Swing Bays is. And I'm excited to get franchisees out there. You know, I always tell people like this, like, I love telling the story of what Swing Bays is. Right now, we're at the beginning stages of our book, and I can't wait to have other people along with me to help write this book of what Swing Bays is. And to create something different, like create something from the ground up, like, that's where I'm at right now. It's like, the way that I see it and the way that I envision it of where it's at right now is really cool. And the way that I, you know, It's just, it's really neat and I can't wait to have others by my side and be by their side as well and help write this story and let other people get the feel of what Swing Bays is and the feel here in Colorado. Can't wait for people that are traveling around and maybe their home is Atlanta and all of a sudden they're at Swing Bays in Atlanta and they're traveling to Denver, know, gives them a little piece of home whenever they're at that they want to travel and they want to stay by a place at Swing Bays. Can't wait to have others write that story with me. Well, it sounds like you're off to a fast start and congratulations on all your early success and wish you a ton of luck with Fransmart and your kind of franchising venture. So if anyone out there listening would like to connect with Dustin to learn more about the Swing Bays franchise and how to become an owner, contact me at franchiseQB.com or on x at QB franchise QB. I'll get you guys connected. Thank you so much Dustin for taking the time to get in the huddle and discuss the swing bays with us today. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for all of you to listen today and hope you learned a little bit more about swing bays today. Awesome. Thank you for listening to the Franchise QB podcast where you're at the helm of your future as a franchise owner. If you enjoyed the content, please rate the show and recommend it to anyone that might be interested in franchising. Make sure to visit franchiseqb.com to subscribe to my newsletter. and for an actionable playbook to go from walk-on to legend in your new business. Follow us on Twitter @QBFranchiseQB, and join us every week for a new episode. See you next time. Visit FranchiseQB.com to take the next step of your journey towards wealth, independence, and franchise ownership. And remember, when working for the man gets old, you must do something bold. Thank you for listening.