Sit back and get ready to take off with Dynamic Golf.
Hey Sean, for our 10th episode, who do we have this week?
This one's going to be a good one, team, I've been excited to get this person on here.
Her name is Abby Merkel, she's the owner and operator of AM Design and Services.
Basically a social media platform company, but I think when we talk to her she does a
lot of different things too.
It's not just social media, she does websites, she does signage.
You know it would just be great to kind of get her perspective in our world, the golf
industry world.
And looking forward to it, I think it should be a great episode and very informational
for our listeners.
I'm really excited about it, so let's get ready to it.
Let's go enjoy it.
So alright, so let's get going here.
So welcome everybody, welcome to Dynamic Podcast.
I'm your co-host Tim McElvanagh, owner and operator of swingtheorygolf.com.
With me is my co-host Sean Klotz.
Hey golfers, how you doing?
Owner and operator of One Stop Golf Club in Wesley Chapel, and we are excited Tim to have
a special guest today.
We got Abby Merkel, she's the president and owner of AM Design and Services, and one of
my good friends and really just a person I've relied on the last couple years in my business.
So Abby, welcome.
Welcome.
Thanks.
So first starting off, I've got a few questions here for you and I'm really excited about
the social media side.
I think that golf professionals need to get involved in the social media side of it.
Their branding, the PJ really harps on that about branding and logoing.
So my first question to you would be, can you share some insights on the importance of branding
and how it impacts the company's presence on social media?
Yeah, well it's not even just social media, but I know we're talking a lot about social
media today.
But no, branding and visual identity is huge with any business owner, large or small, because
it gives that visibility to a consumer or potential customer, who you are, what you're
about, and they can begin to identify you when they see your business collateral, you
on social media, your website, wherever you are advertising or marketing your business.
And especially with social media, making sure that you have a logo, not even just for your
profile picture and your cover image, but also to watermark any videos or images that
are taken specific to either you doing any videos, any how to's, tutorials, and even
just pictures that you're taking maybe of your course of your products, whatever, because
people like me in the advertising world will feel things.
And you don't want the things that you have worked hard on to be taken by other people
and used as their own.
So watermarking is basically an industry standard to kind of keep it copyrighted, for lack of
a better term, does that make sense?
That's correct.
Yeah.
All right.
Yep.
So one of my questions, Abby, and I've got a million just as well as Tim does too, I
feel like we're on a Ted Talks right now, or we're like on a master class right now
with Abby Merkel.
That's right.
Yeah.
So like I said, excited to have you.
You've been such a help over the last three years with my business, and as we've transitioned
from One Stop Golf Shop down in Valrico to One Stop Golf Club up in Wesley Chapel, and
also at Links of Lake Bernadette now too.
So just the kind of the variety of what you do, I think, I don't know if I'm your first
golf specific client, but I know you've had a bunch of other clients and maybe talk a
little bit kind of like the Chamber of Commerce that you do in Valrico, and also a little
bit of background.
But I don't really, I didn't Wikipedia like you probably like Tim did.
I did.
I definitely Wikipedia'd it.
I don't think I have a Wiki page.
But kind of how you got to where you're doing, what you're doing, because I know you did
some sales in the past, and that's not a very good description of what you did.
So tell us kind of how you got here over the past 15, 20 years, whatever.
Okay, well 20 makes me really old.
No, you're 39, and you started when you were 19.
Right, exactly.
No, so let me just go real quick.
My background is corporate retail advertising.
I spent many years in the grocery and furniture industry.
I always said when I was in college, because I went to college for advertising.
That's where I had just the best, always been where my love has been.
And I always said I wanted to be the client.
I didn't want to have clients.
Well, fast forward, now that's what I do.
But I guess that's the difference.
I actually have my own creative studio.
So I do have those clients now that I love to have clients just like you.
And yeah, you are my first golfing client, but I was born and raised on the golf course.
So I know golf.
I played on my high school golf team.
So I definitely, I've enjoyed helping you with the golf industry because that's one
of my go-tos.
And I love sports.
So by the way, if you have a scramble team, Tim, you want Abby?
Okay, I'll be giving you a call, Abby.
You may not want her for individual stroke play, but for scramble.
Yeah, she's your girl.
Good.
Sorry.
No, that's great.
I do have a mean drive.
That's great.
Not perfect though.
Everybody in the golf industry knows no one is perfect.
That's correct.
But no, I don't just help the sports industry at all.
I have a very wide variety of clients that I help.
I've helped CPAs.
I've helped attorneys.
I've helped restaurants.
People in the sports industry.
I have a baseball academy down in South Tampa that I help.
But a lot of the relationships that I've built and clients tell that I've been able to acquire
over the last probably seven years have been through a local chamber of commerce.
It's a smaller chamber, but it's a very close knit.
I wouldn't say clicky because that's not the right word.
It's very close knit.
But they will work well together.
Very active though.
Very much so.
Yeah.
So and the chamber has been amazing, not only for my business, but also in giving back
whatever time that I have.
Yeah.
Aside from my business because I served on the board.
I'm also an ambassador for the chamber now.
But I just I feel that there's a lot of help just in growth with the chambers wherever
anyone is.
I would definitely recommend joining a local chamber if you have one for sure because it
helps to spread the word about what you do as a business and how you can help other people
with whatever it is that you do.
How did you, I mean with the chamber, what kind of started your interest in that?
I mean for just seven years ago, were you just kind of introduced to it or is it something
that you kind of came up with on your own or what kind of got you involved with the
chamber?
Yeah.
I was introduced.
I have a friend, my husband and I coached their son in Little League Baseball.
Yep, I did that too.
Okay.
So but yeah.
And so she owns, she's the owner and editor of a local paper here.
And she told me about the chamber.
I went and it was fairly inexpensive.
This one is.
I know there's some that are very expensive but this one just kind of fits for me as a
business owner and kind of just starting my business.
I didn't have a lot of income so I needed to be able to find something that fit my budget.
And I've just kind of stuck with them.
And like I said, it's a great group of business owners.
It's not like there are some chambers that are very, there's larger corporations that
are involved, this one there's a few but not very many.
It's mostly mom and pop, smaller businesses that are involved in the chamber.
I think part of that too, Abby.
So I've been in the rotary up in Zephyr Hills for basically about 12 years.
And I think part of it from the small business side, we're going to get into more of the
social media side and bigger branding.
But it's like you said, to kind of have the hometown presence, it does allow you to meet
business people.
And in rotary, it's specifically not like you're not supposed to bring your business
card in, you're not supposed to specifically network, but obviously you do.
It's supposed to be about the world mission and the local mission.
But I think the point for the businesses maybe listening is just get involved in something.
You can give back in so many different ways.
I know the chamber has some good give backs to the community type of thing.
And I think that's, it's a passion.
It's almost like, I will say it's kind of like when you go to church and give, it's
like you get more out of doing the food drive than you do putting the $20 in the basket.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, very much so.
And I'm also involved in my youngest son's high school athletic booster club.
And I've been able to not only help the student athletes there, but also be able to contribute
my design work in things that we do as well.
So I don't get paid for it, but I definitely get a college for it.
And I've met quite a few people for that too.
So what else?
Get involved.
Yeah.
There's a big bird going by.
Yeah.
There's a little outdoor nature session we get right now.
That's it.
You're on the back porch.
Exactly.
It's always part of it.
We don't like to be in a studio.
We like to be in nature.
So we hear some golf carts every once in a while, some people yelling at each other.
But anyways, it's fun.
Back to the business.
So Abby, my second question to you.
What are some effective strategies and techniques that you've used successfully to build and
grow your social media platform and businesses?
I think we've kind of touched on a few of those, but what are some of the techniques
and strategies that you're implementing?
So in regards to building my business in what I do?
Yes, ma'am.
Correct.
Okay.
So with, you know, obviously networking is huge word of mouth when I've done something
or anything because social media isn't the only thing I do.
I do graphic design work as well.
So I'm doing logos.
I'm doing business collateral of all kinds.
And I tell people I can do anything as small as a newspaper ad all the way to the side
of a billboard or the side of a semi truck or even an outdoor board.
But with social media in particular, I do workshops.
And I think just being able to be that expert in what I do, present myself as that expert,
I think people have been able to, I guess, to really develop the, to know that I have
the knowledge in the background to be able to do what I say and be able to help them
be successful because that's what I'm here for.
I'm here to help other businesses grow.
And so I think just being able to demonstrate my knowledge, I think is a huge, huge factor.
And I think that goes with any type of business, whether it's in the golf industry or in the
financial industry, anything, wherever you can become the expert and portray that on
social media and whatever you do, I think is huge.
I'm going to try to ask this question positively, but I got a lot of negative thoughts when
I ask it.
So here's where I'm going.
Tim and I, we kind of talk about this on podcast and off podcast.
How many people, last five years, let's just go with that, last five years, how many people
come to us for a golf lesson and say, I saw on YouTube this guy who's telling me to do
it this way and it's different than the way you're telling me to do it.
The influence of YouTube and whatever, it doesn't matter, Instagram, all of it.
And then before five years ago, it was my buddy on Sunday morning told me I was lifting
my head up.
And even though that guy can't break 100, it doesn't matter.
So question being, do you get, I'm going to use the word pushback or are you kind of viewed
as the, hey, I am the professional, I am the expert in the field, or do people still even
question you on some of the strategies that you use?
I do not know everything.
Yep.
Sorry.
And really no one does.
But I think a lot of people will come to me and ask questions, but they also know other
people too.
And like you said, everybody has their own ways of doing things.
I have my own way and it's different from somebody else who does the exact same thing
I do.
As long as someone is able to get the results they want, I don't have a problem if somebody
feels more comfortable in doing something with somebody else that does what I do.
And I am always ready to help answer questions.
I've got one friend who's a business owner here locally who uses somebody else for her
business as social media, but she'll ask me questions.
Not to question that person, but just because something's come up and she doesn't want
to bother them or I'm readily, maybe a little bit more readily available at that time.
So again, people come to me because I am the expert, and I'm the first to tell you I don't
know everything.
Because especially in the world of social media, everything is constantly changing.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I got more if you want me to keep going.
So when you go through the PGA certification, you go through three levels of PGA work.
Basically you go to three different seminars, basically over a two and a half year timeframe.
Some people take five years to take it, to finish it.
But it should be...
Song.
I didn't say anything to you Matt, don't worry.
But it should take around two to three years.
But one of my first instructors will call it, he said to me, or he said to the class,
he said, this is the question you're going to get constantly in the Pro Shop.
And I'm sure Abby, you get this question.
It is the member comes up to you and says, hey, do you got a second where you can talk
to me about my golf swing?
I'm slicing it, it's coming over the top, whatever something's happening.
Do you got a couple minutes?
And the guy said, look at your watch, tell him, sure.
Every minute is $5.
And if you want five minutes, here's $25.
So it's that bridge and we do it all the time too.
We still give away quote unquote free information.
We're doing it on the YouTube and on YouTube channels and in Instagram posts just to try
to promote the businesses that we own currently.
But then where I'm leading to it is the, OK, now how do we monetize?
And that's probably the ultimate question you get asked quite a bit.
How do you monetize your social media?
And maybe share with audience some of the strategies.
OK, great.
You've got good content, but how do you go from free to maybe monetizing that and becoming
Rick Shields or TXG or some of these guys that have huge, huge followings?
Correct.
So no pressure, Abby.
We're taking notes.
Go.
Oh, Lord.
OK, well, so, you know, every every business is going to be different based on what they
do and what they can offer.
Oh, yeah, I definitely give too much free information.
And to monetize these days, it's obviously you're in the world of YouTube, of Instagram,
TikTok.
Obviously, the more followers you have, the better off it's going to be financially down
the road.
But you have to work your ass off to get that going and keep it up.
So really, it's OK.
What expertise do you have?
Do you have the ability to potentially put what you do into written form to write a book?
Maybe it's an audio book.
Maybe it's a video book.
Maybe it's a video.
What is going to be the best vehicle to get what you have out there?
Are there workshops?
You know, there's these whole, you know, these funnels.
I'm sure a lot of people have heard the word about, you know, funnel, which is giving somebody
a nugget for free.
And then when they grab a hold of that, they then are offered something for a financial.
It's a little bit bigger of a nugget.
And that's maybe I don't know, you know, maybe something less than thirty dollars.
And it's giving them a little bit more and then you give them maybe a master class or
it's a live workshop to where you can actually do Q&A.
And those types of things are evergreen.
And evergreen is basically something that you don't actually have to sit there and do
on a daily basis.
It's doing it on its own and making the money, you know, that way.
So that's kind of how you do that.
I think in the golf world, there's some people that we follow, instructors and T Mac and
I talk and not arrogantly, like we just say they have better social media people than
we do or better production teams and better advertising department.
They have more money backing them.
But the content, again, almost like you said about yourself, like the content might be
slightly different than what we would maybe tell a golfer.
Maybe it's not.
Maybe it's the same thing that we're telling golfers.
But that point of basically, I see that where they give the nugget and they have the little,
not header, but on the bottom of the post it says, click here if you want more information
type of thing.
And then it opens up the library of, okay, we're going to give you the book of Genesis
now and then we're going to give you the entire Bible later.
Kind of the idea, right?
I mean, that's kind of what it seems like.
Yeah, and like I said, everything's, everybody's going to be different.
And I think it's how you're going to set yourself apart.
What makes you different than the next person that does the same thing you do.
Right.
Yep.
That's why we started.
Maybe it's your personality.
Maybe it's your delivery of whatever it is that you're doing or you're trying to demonstrate
or show or talk about.
Yeah.
There's branding and even in the social media, like there's a instructor, his name is George
Gankas and out in California.
Yes.
And he's super well known, really technical with some of his instruction, but probably
haven't seen a video of him without shorts and without sandals.
Like that's his, it's his stick.
Yeah.
He's got sweaties on and some shorts.
Yeah.
And he's teaching it like this, you know, beat up driving range.
You would never think that he's, that is this.
And again, super analytical mind, great, you know, he's got a couple of guys actually on
tour that he's kind of worked with, which is also in our world, by the way, that's how
you do kind of like, you know, I'm 52.
So I've kind of got like this, um, this generation of, of David Leadbetter was one of the teachers
back in the eighties, nineties who had, he just started having a stable of golfers.
Yeah.
And it's a little bit of luck.
It's a little bit of, Hey, you are talented, but you do find Nick Faldo or George Price.
Yeah, you just find a certain, um, um, what's a Haney, um, Hank Haney, Hank Haney.
Yep.
And Butch Harmon, Butch Harmon was kind of tiger's teacher for a little bit.
And as soon as you get that tag on you, you're, you're, you know, you're, you're, you're good
from now you're all of a sudden your word is made, yeah, is more important.
So yeah, I think there's a lot of that to that.
So that's that's the timing right there.
Right.
And timing.
Yep.
Um, so Abby, I would kind of ask the question, um, you know, what is, what is kind of some
good ways to, to gather followers?
Is it through video?
Is it through audio like podcasting that we're doing here?
Um, what do you kind of find is, is reaching the most people out there in the media that
we can get into, I guess would be my question to you.
So obviously, well, not obviously to everybody, but yeah, um, that video is king right now,
um, with the world of YouTube, TikTok, uh, Instagram reels, even Facebook reels.
Um, there's been some discussion though, cause when Instagram started, it was very image
driven.
It was photography.
And now to compete with the TikTok and the YouTube of the world, um, they definitely
lean more heavily on their reels and stories and videos.
Yeah, those have been big.
Um, but they're, they're finding that there's just so much of it now that they're actually
wanting to try and drive it back more towards the still photography type stuff.
But that doesn't mean you don't do video.
You should be doing video.
And I mean, you can take a video on your phone.
Everybody's got, you know, the latest and greatest anymore in the way of a phone.
Yeah, this can be a video on your phone and share it on TikTok.
If you have a TikTok account, if you are on Instagram, you can share it to your reels
and your stories.
You can post them as well.
Um, you know, on Facebook, you can share it on YouTube.
Um, again, it's, um, on social media, which YouTube is not considered social media as
much as people think it is.
And neither is Pinterest.
If you guys even know what Pinterest is, it's more female.
Um, those two platforms, Pinterest and, and, and, um, YouTube are not, uh, social media
platforms.
They're actually SEO search engine optimization, where that all leads somebody back to websites.
And so to have, if you're on social media, great, but you need to have whatever you can
in the way of, of SEO.
Um, you know, if you're on YouTube and you're doing videos on instruction or of whatever
kind, make sure you're using keywords, um, on your posts, on your, on your videos and
stuff when you're preparing everything before uploading.
And what would be some keywords that we would kind of look for maybe in the golf industry,
I guess I would say.
I mean golf, uh, golfer.
I mean anything that that video is about, whether it's the golf swing, if it's, um,
you know, driving, uh, putting short game, uh, golf ball, uh, golf course, you know,
anything there's, there's ways you can actually search.
You can Google search keywords for golf instructor and a, you can find, um, hashtags, keywords,
um, with, you know, for that particular subject.
So you anywhere anymore, you can Google anything and you can Google those types of things and
be able to implement those, um, in your posts on the backend of your videos and stuff like
that.
And is there still a, um, I'm going to use the word classification, but like, is there
still segmentations for age groups, meaning my daughters, 23, 21, 18 would probably don't
use Facebook as much as, you know, my generation or whatever they are more.
Yeah.
And then even tick talk and just a little bit of kind of give me, give us the breakdown
of who's using X, who's using Facebook, Instagram, what, you know, whatever the other generational
breakdown.
Yeah.
I'm going to use Facebook because I definitely use it in some of my workshops.
So we'll start with the oldest and greatest ones, right?
Um, the baby boomers, um, they're typically 55 plus, um, they're going to be, um, very
much on Facebook.
They're using it pretty much 90% plus the time.
Okay.
And they're very much driven to be, um, uh, brand loyalists.
Um, so they, you know, Facebook, other than like my space back before Facebook started,
you're dating yourself now.
Go ahead.
I'm not, I just heard about it.
I know.
There you go.
You read an encyclopedia.
You read about it.
Good job.
Exactly.
Um, no, but Facebook was kind of like the OT in the world of social media.
And so that's where they're going to say they learn Facebook and they're going to stay with
me.
Okay.
Um, we'll venture out, but that's, that's, you know, far between, but, uh, Gen X, um,
they're 35 to 54.
They're going to be on Facebook, but they're going to be more on Instagram.
Um, and tick tock, um, the no tick tock is the newest line out there, um, in the way
of the majors, um, but they're, you know, everybody is talking more, but it is Facebook,
Instagram and, uh, millennials, which are the 18 to 34 year olds.
Uh, they're going to be on Instagram, Snapchat, tick tock, um, and then Gen Z, which is under
18.
They're going to be on tick tock mostly.
Um, kids always use Snapchat because they like to take a picture of a quadrant of their
face and post it to their friends.
Okay.
Uh, you know, whatever, but, but I would say that, um, you need to take a look at who you're
targeting and figure out where you need to be.
It's another one.
LinkedIn is going to be anybody who's, you know, in business.
So I would say baby boomers, probably the younger of the baby boomers, Gen X and maybe
the older millennial older side of the millennials are on LinkedIn.
So you really need to take a look at who you want to target, who your prime customer is
and make sure that you're on those.
Now I didn't mention Twitter or these days it's X.
Um, that is actually really good, especially if you are in the sports industry, um, because
it's heavy in sports and entertainment, uh, is, is where the Twitter slash X tends to
tend to everybody be like with my boys, both like baseball and all of the scouting and
all of the discussion gets done on Twitter.
Um, so I would say make sure that if you're in the golf industry, you're on Twitter as
well.
Okay.
That's interesting.
That's good to know.
So, um, I guess I, you know, you kind of answered most of my questions there, but I guess what
I, the last one I would kind of answer or ask is, um, can you provide some tips and
advice for businesses or individuals looking to enhance their social media presence and
make a more impactful presence?
I think you've kind of touched on that quite a bit here.
Um, but you know, any, you know, is there any, I guess, you know, things that you kind
of do with the videos or things that, that really kind of stand out that, you know, make
it, you know, well known that, Hey, there I am here.
I am.
Look at me.
Isn't a big part of it just being consistent with it.
Isn't that like maybe one of the top five rules or something?
Yeah, definitely being consistent.
Um, I mean, if you're doing how to videos, uh, you know, maybe doing those once a week
on a particular day, um, you know, those types of things, but I would say the biggest, one
of the big questions that I'm always asked is how often should it be posting?
Um, it depends on your industry, where you are, what you're doing.
Um, I, I used to always say you have to be on there every single day because you don't
know when somebody's on social media and you want to make sure you're getting whoever,
whenever they're out there, but it's not feasible for everybody to do.
So my recommendation these days is you need to be on social media.
You need to be doing posts consistently three days a week at least.
If you can do more great, do you need to be out there every hour on the hour doing posts?
No.
Um, but I, again, it depends on your business.
I would say though, three days a week at least, and just a post each of those things.
How about responding back to people?
I see that a lot in our stuff that, um, and I, I'm going to say it, I'm going to, I always
preface my questions.
It's funny, but, um, so from the Google review part of the world, from the golf course perspective,
um, and, and even like, you know, in, in lessons we get, maybe somebody will maybe do a review
on us, but we're, we're one man operation kind of smaller, whatever.
I'll get some reviews of the, of the golf club, you know, one stop golf club.
Um, people like it and that type of thing.
But from the golf course perspective, Tim's worked at a golf course since he was 18 in
various facts, you know, fashions and kind of back and forth.
And I've been at a golf course since I was 13.
So my, my long-winded question is Google reviews are challenging because one day I can have
a review of the golf courses in the best shape ever, the hot dogs were great.
The greens were perfect.
The starter was friendly.
And then the same golf, same day, it's the complete opposite.
Staff was miserable.
The carts didn't run.
The greens are slow.
One grumpy man on there.
You know, so it's hard to like respond in earnest.
I'll say from the business owner side, and I'm the manager, not the business owner, but
still from the owner side of the, of Lake Bernadette to, you know, I guess you should
still respond, but it's hard to bite your lip sometimes.
Maybe you pointed to that?
Yeah.
So, just to do a quick sidebar to get to the answer for you.
So I worked for a furniture company and they're predominantly in the Southeast.
And the name of the company was the family that founded the company, their last name.
Okay.
So it's this is bad clock furniture.
Okay.
So, okay.
Everybody has their little, little wheels going in their heads with that.
Well, I helped start the fan of the company's Facebook page back when I worked with them
and all of the executives were, oh my gosh, you know, we can't do this.
We're afraid, you know, not only is this a name going to create stir, but what if we
get a bad review?
And I'm going to sit there and I'm going, okay, then you address it.
You acknowledge it.
You try and resolve it.
So you know, so even back, you know, 20 years ago, still holds true today.
You reply to the good ones.
You reply to the bad ones.
The good ones, you're saying, thank you so much for taking your time, taking the time
to leave a review.
We appreciate it.
I mean, there's times where if somebody leaves a three or a four, three is still considered
decent, but you'd rather have a four or five.
You're asking them, okay, you left me a three or a four and you left me a great review.
How can we make it a five?
Gotcha.
You know, so you always want to show that you're trying to improve.
If it's a bad review, then you're going, I am sorry that you've had the experience you've
had with whatever.
I don't even care if they said your food sucks or, you know, the service was horrible, whatever
the case might be.
You're like, I'm sorry this happened.
What you know, please give us a call.
We'd love to talk to you, see how we can make it right.
You're typically when somebody leaves a bad review, they're in a heat of the moment and
they just want to get it off their chest.
They're more than likely not going to reply or call you after your reply to them.
Gotcha.
It's kind of a water and they got it out there.
Because they feel a little embarrassed about it, I guess.
No, I don't think they do.
You know, because they probably do it everywhere they go.
Right, right, right.
Okay.
But honestly, I think it's, you know, and it shows that you're human as a business or
an individual that there's going to be pickups.
It shows that you're human and it shows that you're trying to help rectify the situation.
There are, you know, and if you have one bad review and everything else has been good,
people are going to be smart enough to know that that person is probably just, they had
a bad review.
Yeah.
Or they're just always like that.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
And killing with kindness is basically the...
Correct.
Yeah.
If it's that bad and you feel that agitated or angry at that particular time, walk away.
And we always had coaches say, you don't confront us if you're a ticked off parent, you come
back to us in 24 hours or 48 hours.
You do the same with this review.
You're going to step away, filter out that aggression that you probably had towards that
person.
Yeah, the emotion that's running through you.
Yep.
And then you just, and then you come back and you are as politically correct as you
can.
Right.
Because bad reviews can do damage, but if it's just one, then you're okay.
But if there's multiples about the same situation, then you need to look at what's going on.
Yeah.
We need to fix the hot dogs or whatever.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
We need to fix the hot dogs.
Absolutely.
Time out.
Start getting to work.
And then just to make it the positive, again, kind of business growth side, the reason that
you're doing that as the owner is to show the consumer who is Googling you, checking
out your reviews, whatever, that you do care.
Right?
I mean, that's kind of, that's why they're going to come to your golf course or your
business or whatever, because you have taken the time as a small business owner to, hey,
respond back.
And that's why you're not just ignoring them.
Yes?
Yeah.
And I've told that there's been six times with some of my clients, they're like, well,
how am I going to get Google reviews?
You know, because I'm telling people now, don't get Facebook reviews because there's
bots out there.
And I know I'm taking that to the next level here, but there's bots now that look for keywords.
And when people leave reviews, they come in and they just go off on some random standard
that has nothing to do with either your business or what you do.
Right.
So Google reviews, you have to have.
You need to have to validate not only your business with Google, but with other people
doing searches.
And what you can do, this is another nugget for people, is if you've got customers or
clients that you know will leave a review, send them a message, whether it's an email
or Facebook message, Instagram, you know, whatever.
If you were to give them maybe some keywords, like, could you leave me a review regarding
your work experience during our lesson today?
And what maybe you might, one thing you might have learned today.
And then that way they're being specific to a review that you're looking for.
Okay.
That makes sense?
Yeah.
So we're not writing it for them.
No, no.
But we're guiding them.
Yeah, you're giving them the subject line that you kind of want them to talk about.
Gotcha.
Okay.
So, Abby, another question I would ask, and I think this is kind of a big topic right
now, is AI with social media and other things.
Have you seen the emergence of that coming on in and what are some fears and maybe some
good things that are coming out of that?
Could you touch on that?
Yeah.
Well, my world, I definitely fear it.
Okay.
Because it can take over everything that I do.
But it's all in what I choose to do with it.
I use it.
I don't use it for everything, but I use it as ideas.
Like I'll use ChatGPT.
I don't really use Mid Journey or Dolly Three.
Those two last things are more image creators.
But ChatGPT will help come up with ideas for my social posts or blog posts or whatever
it is that I'm working on.
And then I rewrite or add to or whatever the case might be to make it more of my voice
or my client's voice.
So it's all in how you embrace it.
Yeah.
Rather than doing the whole cross finger sign at it.
It'll keep away.
Because it's going to not be going anywhere.
Now is it going to change?
Oh yeah, it'll change.
You can strain ChatGPT if you're using it for your business and how it's all in how
you put the information in and all as descriptive as you can be at what you're really wanting
to get from it, it will give to you.
Interesting.
It's very interesting.
Scary.
But I think it's like anything else.
Kind of like the emergence of the internet or the car.
Everybody thought the end of the world was going to come with it.
But we have to adapt to the change and see.
You're right.
There's a lot of things to be fearful for, but there's also a lot of things I think to
be excited about too.
China's not taking over yet.
They're coming.
That's another podcast.
Anyways, I just again want to tell the audience how helpful you are as a resource.
I really appreciate what you've done over the last three and a half years with us.
Look forward to the future.
I know TMAC was excited to meet you.
Yeah, this is great.
And really helpful.
And give us your little elevator speech if people want to get in touch with you.
Tell us about your business and where to find you basically.
Definitely.
So again, my name is Abby Merkel and the business is AM Design and Services.
You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest.
You can find me on those social media platforms.
My website is amdesignservice.com.
And you can definitely message me and if you have any questions, if you want to do a discovery
to see how I possibly help you or your business.
Great, great.
And I just want to put in the last little part there that you are a USF grad.
Is that correct?
I am, go Bulls.
Go Bulls.
I graduated in class of 13.
So we've got to get a University of Tampa guy on here for Sean.
There you go.
Exactly.
Hey, once again, Abby, thank you so much for joining us.
I really had a good time with you and maybe we'll do this again in the future talk because
we know that social media is changing every day.
Every day.
Yes.
Yeah, definitely.
I appreciate you guys having me on today.
All right.
We'll talk soon.
Thank you, Abby.
Appreciate it.
So Sean, I thought that was a great episode.
Abby, I thought brought up some great points.
I was absolutely fascinated with the generational gaps with each one of the social media sites.
I think that's huge for any professional, if not even in the golf industry, but you
know, making sure that you're targeting the generation that you're looking for and getting
there.
It's something that we kind of know her breakdown of it was really good.
This is one of those podcasts you don't listen to once.
I think you literally take notes through it because there's so many, she used the word
nuggets, there's so many good pieces of information in there.
I kind of kidded about being like a master class, but it was.
I mean, that's some great information from somebody at the top of her field who knows
what she's doing, who has a lot of clients who are very loyal to her for a reason because
of how personally, how easy she is to talk to, how every time I call her, and we didn't
touch on this, but I will call her not between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
We've developed a rapport relationship.
It's not always a phone call, right?
It's a quick text, it's an email, and she'll respond off hours.
And it's just, you don't get that from, again, almost like the big box social media platform
people.
She's an individual small business owner who has the experience of basically 20 to 25 years
of past things that led her to the spot, but she did, she said she went to USF as a marketing
major, and that wasn't 10 years ago.
I don't want to tell you her age.
Yeah, I know.
Well, I thought the other big thing was how much connecting with your community, getting
with the Valrico Chamber and Sallius has really elevated her business.
And I think a lot of things that I take from it is get out there and be social with your
community.
Get your face out there, get your name out there, get your brand out there, and that's
what's really going to help you.
That's what I've kind of taken away from this, which is great.
Yeah, now it was just, like I said, a good master class in all of it.
A lot of good nuggets in there.
Go re-listen to it and start putting some of those things into effect.
From the golf pro perspective, you and I have kind of branched out in the past couple years,
but there's such a mentality, and it's changing in our industry because the younger generation,
but it was just you stuck, you stayed in the pro shop, you waited for the customer to walk
in, you waited for the member to ask you, hey, are you available for a golf lesson?
And almost every time when I still do many pro shop shifts, as you're ringing the person
in, you're taking their money, hey, how's your game today?
How you doing?
How's everything going good with your golf game?
And then when they come in at the end and I'm serving them a beer or a Coke or whatever,
hey, how'd you play?
Ah, you know what?
Kind of still struggling with my fade or my slice.
Oh really?
What's going on?
Oh, I don't know, I'm pushing it.
And then you just start the conversation and then you do hand out the business card still
traditionally and say, hey, you know what?
If you want some more information, but you've got, so that has to happen still, like Abby
was saying, but it's almost being multi-diversified, which is what the term they would use in the
stock when you're doing your 401ks and stuff and your financial, like you've got to be
diversified in your message and get it out on multiple different platforms and be consistent
with it and just.
Consistency, consistency, consistency.
I think we learned that too, right?
What's our number one, when golfers come to us and say, what do you want to get better
with?
They want to be more consistent.
Consistent, how much time do you practice?
Right?
That's what we tell them.
Yeah, so what are you doing to make that?
So anyway, really, really good episode.
I look forward to having her back in the future.
Yeah.
There's so many things you touched on it during the podcast.
The AI portion is coming.
It's not something to be just kind of like fearful of, but you can't wave that one away.
It's coming.
No, no.
So great, great time.
I really looking forward to our next guest next week.
And I think we did a good job.
Yep.
Great.
So look forward to the next episode.
Thank you and have a great day.
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