| South America on the way to join the HSPSE-movement |
| Wednesday, 25 June 2008 | |
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Michel
Monnard, part of HSPSE-Management, has spent 11 interesting days in
South America to open the golf markets of Argentina, Chile and Brazil
to Yes! Golf and the Harold Swash Putting School of Excellence.
Michel Monnard, responsible for the setup of the South American Distribution for Yes! Golf was travelling with Yes! Head of Distribution (Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Australia, South Africa) Wayne Farrell at the end of May to hold Demo Days and Presentations in Buenos Aires, Santiago Chile and Sao Paulo. In all these areas Michel Monnard made considerable efforts to find and prepare Distribution partners. The launch of the widely known Yes! Putter was combined with the Introduction of the Harold Swash Putting School of Excellence and its Tour-proven teaching method which is intrinsically linked to the Yes Putter. Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, the new Distribution partner Zona Golf picked up the Yes! staff to get the 3 day stay rolling. After first talks at Zona Golf's Distribution Headquarter, plans where taken further to startup the brand in the biggest golfing country in South America. The second day was to be a Demo Day and Presentation to a selected group of Golf Teaching Professionals at Buenos Aires Golf Club, a club where Tiger Woods and David Duval won the World Cup some years ago. The presentation was indoors and about the Company Yes! Golf, the history of the Yes! Putter from Harold Swash’s invention up to the current year with close to 400,000 Putters being sold world wide in the last year. The presentation also made the Teaching Pros see the importance of Ball Roll and how it can be positively influenced by C-Groove Technology. The company’s strategy is to provide more than just a putter, but a fitting process, range of teaching aids, accessories and - in cooperation with the Harold Swash Putting School of Excellence - a teaching method and Accredited Instructors’ Scheme for golf-teaching professionals, that further educates them and gives them first-hand knowledge of how today’s Tour Player are taught. All these additional ‘gimmes’ are valuable within themselves and together with Yes! Golf’s C-Groove Putter they form a new dimension in service to the golfing public. Up until the Yes! Golf proposition, people were used to buying a putter off the shelf and receiving no accompanying guidance or custom-fitting to develop their putting further. After the presentation, the Demo on the green was due to be about an hour. In total Michel Monnard and Wayne Farrell spent well over 2 hours with the teaching pros, testing equipment, using teaching tools and delivering a brief introduction into how to use video capture and carry out ball-roll analysis. Some pros also extended the session to benefit from more in-depth analysis of their own technical flaws. Some members came by to see what was going on, some ending up ordering the first Yes! Putters in Argentina. The third day was a Demo at the country’s biggest national amateur tournament at El Nacional Golf Club. The amateurs could test the putters, see their ball roll on video and were given a few insights from Farrell and Monnard. The afternoon was about seeing different Shops, Driving Ranges and having discussions with their owners. This was done so that Yes! Golf as a company could get a better feeling of a golfing scene which for Europeans is unknown.
Buenos Aires to Santiago in Chile The newly appointed distributor in Chile, Raymond Venegas from TeeOne Golf is motivated by wanting to make golf accessible to a wider audience and really popularize golf as a sport and a leisure activity. An upsurge in interest is already evident with the current Tour prominence of Chilean golfer Felipe Aguilar. In Buenos Aires, the Yes! Team had around 12 Teaching Professionals attending. All of them had plenty of years of teaching experience and showed great enthusiasm for the Yes! Golf HSPSE proposition. In Chile there where 23 Professionals who attended the Presentation and Demo. Chile’s #1 Professional, Hugo Contreras, was part of the group. Farrell and Monnard spent a good deal of time with him, planning the HSPSE training session, planned for this coming January. After the Presentation and the Demo, his comment simply was: "You got the first guy for your training! I am looking very much forward to becoming a Putting Specialist."
Santiago to Sao Paolo in Brazil Onwards to Sao Paulo, where Farrell and Monnard had several meetings with local distribution companies planned. Brazil is not a big golfing country. There are probably 12 - 13000 golfers and most of the golfing happens in the greater Sao Paulo area. The aim was to have interviews with potential partner businesses, with a view to choosing who would be best qualified to promote the Yes! brand in Brazil. After 10 busy days, Michel Monnard returns to Mallorca, Spain and Wayne Farrell to Cape Town, South Africa to further strengthen the Yes! Distribution network and make it possible that South American golfers can enjoy a putter brand that is hugely popular on the European and Asian PGA Tours, not to mention the countless amateurs who play a Yes Putter. Over the next few months Michel Monnard will be working on selecting distribution and coaching partners in Panama, Venezuela, Colombia and The Caribbean. After all, this trip has been very valuable for Michel Monnard and Wayne Farrell to give some key-persons in the golf club business, the Golf Teaching Professionals a further view into what the market is up to now. Over and above the presentation of the putters and C-Groove Technology it will always remain very important to make the new national distributors aware of how to conduct successful Demo Days – both to golf professionals who own shops and to those who coach golf. It’s only since Yes! Golf became truly a global brand through growing Tour usage and soaring popularity among club golfers that it has been possible to see just how the putters are so successful. Instead of just finding distributors that will shift boxes of putters, the Yes! offering comprises analysis, a putting philosophy, consistency of coaching and technology and an entire support package of training aids and accessories to optimize the golfer’s desire to own a Yes! Putter. It greatly enhances the partners’ ability to sell a Yes! putting solution, and simultaneously enhances the golfer’s overall satisfaction. What we offer Tour professionals is precisely what we offer the club player – without cutting corners, making economies or discriminating against the amateur. No other brand accords quite the same degree of respect to its market. This is very important in mature markets like Europe and the US. In NEW markets like South America where a brand like Yes! is as fresh and exciting as public enthusiasm for the game itself, it’s not just important, it’s crucial.
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Honk Kong Info Brochure November 2008
