Balancing Sales Goals With a Member-First Culture | Next Level Careers

Private club culture lives and dies on relationships. Push too hard on revenue and you erode the trust. Pull back too much and you miss your numbers. Most sales leaders in hospitality know that tension well, and how you navigate it usually says more about the club than any number on the balance sheet.

Lyon Lazare has spent his career finding ways to align those competing priorities. As Director of Sales at Monarch Beach Golf Links, he leads group sales, tournaments and event bookings across a wide range of clients, from corporate outings to charity events to resort groups. He'd tell you the tension between revenue and member experience isn't really a tension at all. Handled well, the two work as one.

A Career That Grew One Department at a Time

Lazare started in guest services at a private golf club while still in college. Being around the game he loved was part of the appeal, but the bigger takeaway was quieter. He saw firsthand how much the small details and personal interactions shaped the way loyal members and repeat guests felt about a place. He learned early that customer relations would travel with him no matter where his career went next.

From there, he moved into membership sales, where he started to understand that people don't buy a private club membership the way they buy other products. They invest in community, relationships, and the sense of belonging that comes with being part of something. That framing stuck with him. He wanted to understand the full picture of how a club actually runs, not just the sales side of it.

That curiosity moved him through the organization. He took a role in the golf shop as an assistant golf professional, learning check-in processes, running clinics and working alongside instructors. Later, as Director of Membership and Operations at Valencia Country Club, he added food and beverage to his skill set under a general manager who took that side of the business seriously. Each move added a department and a new perspective.

"I wanted to have my hand in the cookie jar for all departments. Long term, that meant understanding what everyone from the bottom all the way up does."

That cross-functional view is what shapes how he thinks about revenue today.

Business Goals and Member Experience Aren't Competing

For Lazare, sales and member experience are directly connected. Members don't invest in a private club for a product. They invest in access, relationships and a sense of community. Revenue management taught him that short-term wins can quietly cost long-term trust, and that the smartest decisions are the ones that hold up years down the line.

His framework is simple. Does this decision make good business sense and does it enhance or preserve the member experience? The best answers usually do both. That could mean reserving premium tee times for members while still optimizing outside play, or building programming that adds value without eroding the efficiency of the operation.

“If members consistently feel like they're an afterthought in pursuit of revenue, you're going to see short-term gains but lose long-term trust and loyalty."

What "Member-First" Actually Means

The phrase gets used a lot in hospitality, but Lazare has a more specific definition. For Lazare, being member-first comes down to priorities. The long-term value of the membership stays at the center of every decision, even when revenue pressures push in another direction. That sometimes means saying no to a request or turning down an opportunity, but the reasoning always ties back to the same thing: protecting what members are actually investing in.

Communication is a big part of how that gets carried out. Members are usually understanding when they know the reasoning behind a decision, especially when they can see the benefit it brings back to the club. Empowering the team matters too. When a member has an issue, staff need to focus on creating a positive outcome rather than defaulting to policy. Happy members stay longer, spend more across the club and become the club's strongest advocates.

"The best clubs don't choose between member satisfaction and business success. They build a culture where one strengthens the other."

When the Right Decision Doesn't Look Great on Paper

One example still stands out for Lazare. A photo shoot wanted to buy out the ocean holes at Monarch Beach, holes 3 and 4, for a full day. The revenue would have easily offset any discounts on the remaining 16 holes. On paper, it made sense.

The problem was that the ocean holes are one of the main reasons members and guests come to Monarch in the first place. Selling that experience away for a day would have quietly cost more than the shoot would have paid. So he went back with alternatives. Certain hours of the day, different locations around the course or a full day buyout with no golfers on the schedule at all. That last option had worked in the past. This time it didn't, but the framework held.

"Not every piece of business is the right fit. Sometimes saying no is just as important as saying yes."

How Trust Turns Sales Into Conversations

The trust that makes those decisions land well with members is built long before there's ever a business conversation on the table. It comes from consistency, accessibility and taking genuine interest in the people you serve.

Lazare has found the best relationships come from time spent with members outside of a sales context. Greeting them around the club, checking in after a round, attending club events and letting conversations happen without an agenda. Over time, you learn what people actually care about, what they value about the club and where they see opportunities for improvement.

When a business opportunity does come up, the conversation feels different. Instead of leading with a pitch, Lazare asks questions and listens. He works to understand what success looks like for the person across from him, then offers solutions from there. Sometimes the recommendation matches what the member initially asked for. Sometimes it doesn't. The goal is to be useful, not just responsive.

The Signals That Actually Measure Loyalty

Revenue matters, but Lazare treats it as a lagging indicator. The signals he watches more closely are the ones that show whether members are becoming more engaged with the club. Are they using the amenities? Bringing guests? Showing up to social events and tournaments? Retention numbers tell part of the story. Referrals tell a bigger one. When he ran membership at Valencia, member referrals were the bread and butter of every campaign, more powerful than any outside marketing spend.

Internal signals count too. Engaged employees create engaged members, and consistency on the staff side almost always shows up on the member side. His advice to other leaders in relationship-driven industries starts there. Be clear about what you're actually optimizing for. If the only lens is monthly revenue or rounds played, decisions will drift toward the short term. Broaden the lens to include engagement, retention and referrals, and the whole decision process changes.

"When you consistently protect the member experience, performance tends to follow."

The Advice He'd Give His Younger Self

Lazare has one piece of advice he'd give his younger self, and it comes out fast when the question lands. Get comfortable being uncomfortable, sooner.

His biggest career regret was staying in a role longer than he should have. It was familiar and easy, and there wasn't much left to learn. Once he stepped into something harder, the whole trajectory of his career opened up. He shares that advice with his siblings often, and it's the same principle that guides how he thinks about his work today. Whether it's a career decision or a sales decision, the easy short-term answer rarely pays off the way the harder long-term one does.

For leaders in any relationship-driven business, the lesson is simple: when people trust that their interests matter, loyalty follows, and long-term performance becomes much easier to sustain.