5 Signs Your Club Operations Need Attention

Summary: If your staff spends more time managing chaos than serving members, the problem isn't the staff. It's the system. Here are 5 signs your operations need attention - and what you can do about each one.

Let's be honest.

You probably know something isn't working. You feel it every day. The phone calls. The double-checking. The "let me verify that" conversations.

But because it's always been this way, it feels... normal?

It's not normal. It's just common.

Sign #1: Paper Still Runs Your Booking System

What it looks like:

• A physical book at the front desk
• Handwritten schedules on a whiteboard
• Staff checking multiple places to answer "is this court free?"

The real cost:

The pattern: Paper systems worked when you had 50 members. They break when you have 200.

What to do: You don't need enterprise software. You need ONE digital place where all bookings live, visible to everyone.

Sign #2: Critical Information Lives in People's Heads

What it looks like:

• "Ask María, she knows"
• New staff takes months to get up to speed
• When someone's sick, things fall apart

Why this happens:

It's comfortable. María's been there for years. She knows everything. The system IS María.

The problem:

Reality: If your operations depend on one person's memory, you don't have operations. You have a single point of failure.

What to do: Start documenting. Not everything at once. Start with the 5 questions María answers most often.

Sign #3: Members Call to Confirm Bookings They Already Made

What it looks like:

• "Just calling to make sure my reservation is still there"
• Members showing up 10 minutes early "just in case"
• Staff spending time confirming things that should already be confirmed

What this really means:

They don't trust your system. And they're probably right not to.

Key point: Every "confirmation call" is a symptom. The disease is unreliable bookings.

What to do: Automatic confirmations. By WhatsApp, by email, whatever. When someone books, they should immediately get proof.

Sign #4: You Don't Know Your Numbers Until Month-End

What it looks like:

• Cash in multiple places
• End-of-day reconciliation takes forever
• Financial surprises when you finally sit down with the numbers

The hidden cost:

You can't fix what you can't see. And by the time you see it, it's already happened.

What to do: Track revenue daily, even if it's just 5 minutes with a spreadsheet. Weekly patterns become obvious fast.

Sign #5: Your Staff Spends More Time on Admin Than on Members

The math nobody does:

How much of your staff's day goes to:

• Answering "is this court available?"
• Processing payments manually
• Chasing down information
• Fixing problems that shouldn't have happened

If it's more than 30%, something's wrong.

Reality: Your staff isn't there to manage systems. They're there to make members want to come back.

What to do: Track it for one week. How much time goes where? The answer will tell you what to fix first.

The Pattern Behind All 5 Signs

Notice something?

All 5 signs point to the same root cause: information that isn't accessible when you need it.

• Bookings on paper = information trapped in one place
• Knowledge in heads = information trapped in one person
• No confirmations = information not reaching members
• No real-time numbers = information arriving too late
• Admin overload = information requiring manual handling

Fix the information flow, and most of these problems fix themselves.

Where to Start

Don't try to fix everything. Pick the sign that hurts most.

Then measure. Did it help? Good, pick the next one.

The Question Nobody Asks

How long have you been dealing with these problems?

And how much longer are you going to?

The tools to fix them exist. They're not expensive. They're not complicated.

The only question: Are you going to keep managing around the chaos, or fix what's causing it?

What's your first move?