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Racquet Fuel provides insights into the best practices and innovations of racquets industry business leaders.
Co-hosts Kim Bastable, Director of Professional Tennis Management at the University of Florida, and Simon Gale, Senior Director Racquet Sports Development at the USTA National Campus, help racquets leaders in your ability to grow the game and to improve the experiences you offer to both your staff and players by talking to industry leaders, including USTA executives, authors and innovators. If you are on a career path in racquet sports or already a racquets business leader and you want to stay up to date on ideas and innovations in racquets industry business and leadership, this podcast is for you.
Presented by the Athlete+ Podcast Network at the University of Florida Institute for Coaching Excellence.
Hi. This is Kim Bastable. And as Simon and I plan and record season four of Racquet Fuel, you will be enjoying replayed episodes from seasons one through three. There's incredible content from our previous episodes, and we want to inspire leaders and really help any tennis player or rackets player to consider a career path in the rackets profession. The content from our previous episodes should not sit on the shelf, so we're happy to provide it for you.
Kim Bastable:Please enjoy this episode recorded last year.
Episode Narration:Welcome to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger rackets leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former all American tennis player and now director of tennis management at the University of Florida, and Simon Gale, the USTA National Campus director of Racquet Sports. Today on Racquet Fuel, we'll get an owner's perspective from Joe Curto in Yonkers, New York. Joe will share about the challenges and joys he's experienced during his long career in club ownership. Now here's Kim and Simon.
Episode Narration:Welcome
Kim Bastable:to Racquet Fuel. I'm Kim Bastable, and I'm here with my host, Simon Gale. Simon, how are you doing today?
Simon Gale:Excited to get this one started. We got a great guest and looking forward to having an amazing conversation with this person today.
Kim Bastable:We are excited. This is Joe Curto, and Joe and Simon have worked closely together. Joe is owner of Yonkers Tennis Center in Westchester County, New York. He's owned and operated the center for almost forty years and has seen so many challenges over those years. We are excited to hear the the pluses and the minuses of being a thirty seven year club owner.
Kim Bastable:So, Joe, welcome. We're excited to have you here today.
Joe Curto:Thank you. I can't think of a better place to be this afternoon. Looking forward to it. You guys do a great job and really important for the industry.
Kim Bastable:Thank you.
Simon Gale:So, Joe, what a lot of people need to know or don't know is that you and I worked together, I worked for you for the best part of thirteen years starting around 2003. But a little backstory that you may not even know is that when I first started, was just about to get my green card. And I was going to get my green card and move to Florida or warmer weather and move on to whatever was next for me. And a very close friend of ours, who's no longer with us, Coach Pat, worked for you forever, kept telling me this guy Joe, he's an amazing owner, he's such a good guy, you you are in good hands and so on. He was always talking about how wonderful you were and I was like, yeah, yeah, I know, he's a club owner and all this sort of thing.
Simon Gale:But as a testament to you, thirteen years later, I was still working there and so I appreciate what you did for me and others that worked for you and you've influenced me greatly over the years with some of your one liners and so on. But apart from being a Yankees fan, I am a huge fan of yours. So thanks for joining us today.
Joe Curto:Well, you. Those were very nice comments and you brought back some memories.
Simon Gale:So what I think is interesting with your story, your journey to being a club owner is that maybe that wasn't what you were destined for or what what you thought you were gonna be. So maybe you can share that story with us.
Joe Curto:Sure. So basically, Yonkers Tennis is was built in 1971. It was built during the tennis boom indoors in the Northeast. So my dad and my uncle were a third partner in the organization. There were two other business partners.
Joe Curto:One of the partners knew something about tennis. The other two, absolutely nothing. So they gave it a shot. It was mostly a real estate investment, which was a lot of the clubs that were built in our area at that time. They ran it.
Joe Curto:Eventually, my dad and my uncle bought out their partners, and they owned it solely. Fast forward to 1983, I graduated from Syracuse University with a business degree, nice shiny degree from the orange. Got out of school and was gonna go to law school. And I figured, let me work for a year, get some experience in life, and, you know, then apply to law school and take it from there. So my dad offered me a job with his family operation, and they were entrepreneurs to the truest sense, the rags to riches story.
Joe Curto:They had an appliance company. They owned commercial real estate. They owned an indoor dinner theater, and they owned a tennis club. So he said, come work for me for a year. You'll do everything and anything, and you're gonna work your tail off because you don't know anything because all you have is a shiny degree from a college.
Joe Curto:So I worked for him full time. They threw me at the tennis center at night, so I did all the graveyard shifts just helping in any capacity. I vacuumed the courts, and I did that about twenty hours a week on top of my regular forty plus hour job. And I kinda liked it. It was interesting.
Joe Curto:You know, business is business. We just wear different outfits. And I, you know, kinda developed, you know, kind of a love for it, the people and what we were doing. It was you know, it's a tennis business, but, you know, you're servicing people. They walk in the door.
Joe Curto:They're hopefully smiling. And if you did a good job, they're smiling on the way out. So he then offered me a job full time after a year, and he says, tell you what. I'm gonna let you take that degree that you got and apply it to the real world. I'm So gonna hire you as a manager.
Joe Curto:I'm gonna give you $15,000 a year and a set of keys and figure it out. So I had to jump at the offer just because of the pay, and I, you know, became a club manager. I knew absolutely nothing about tennis. The first day I started, I turned on the lights. We used to close in the summertime, and the building had gotten flooded over the summertime.
Joe Curto:So the entire building was covered in orange mud. And my first reaction was, wow. We have red clay tennis courts. And that's just what you do in the tennis business. If you don't have a sense of humor, you will not last very long because there's things that come at you right and left from every which way, and you just gotta deal with it.
Joe Curto:And if you don't have a sense of humor, you might as well find something else to do. And I've been there ever since. I ran every aspect of the club. I changed the light bulbs. I cleaned the toilets.
Joe Curto:I washed the courts. And then ultimately, I got out of the day to day stuff, and I hired Simon and his sidekick at the time, Mitch, to kinda run the club. So that was a challenge in and of itself, and the rest is history. I believe in hiring good people and let them do what they know and just keep an eye on them at the same time.
Simon Gale:Well, you talk about real estate and and your your your family or father having real estate in that area. And at least more than had to be more than once, you threatened to potentially sell it to McDonald's or somebody like that in the area and retire and go and live in Italy or something like that. So it's prime real estate in Westchester County and I guess my question to you is, why do you keep the doors open and what's your bigger purpose? Why do why do you do this year in, year out?
Joe Curto:Well, the latest threat when I get cranky is that we're gonna open a Chuck E. Cheese. And I already have it targeted. A couple of my staff people would make perfect rats in the rat suit with the white gloves. So every time the word Chuck E.
Joe Curto:Cheese comes up, they all look at me and start cracking up and then at the back of their head say, this guy can't be serious. At the end of the day, I mean, we run a business, so we have to provide a reasonable rate of return for the partners, which is myself and my two cousins. If we can't do that, then it becomes a charity, and that's not what we're there for. What's our purpose? Our purpose is to run a really good small company that just happens to be in the tennis business.
Joe Curto:So we're in the hospitality business. So my favorite book is Danny Meyer, who's a famous restaurateur called setting the table. And he talks about getting into the restaurant business, but, really, it's the hospitality business, how you make people feel when they come in and when they leave. Because at the end of the day, the majority of the people that are coming to our club are coming to get away from something or get away from life for an hour, hour and a half, and just have a good time. Yes.
Joe Curto:They're there to learn. Yes. They're discretionary in how they spend their money. But, ultimately, they wanna be experienced. They wanna have a good time there, and you can't make their life difficult.
Joe Curto:And we talk about this all the time. You know, when I read my statements online, can I read them? Do they have to be difficult? Life is difficult. Don't make your experience at my club difficult at the same time, and that's kind of what we thrive for.
Joe Curto:I have 25 employees. The majority of them work there to pay their bills, feed their families, and do whatever it is they do. We have almost nobody who does this because somebody said you need to go work at a tennis club so that you can fulfill your lifelong ambition. Yeah. They're working people that are doing what they love, and, you know, they love each other, which is a great thing.
Joe Curto:So that's kinda what we do. We do a lot of community work. We're in the schools. We do we've done homeless shelters, youth center in the South Bronx. That was absolutely one of the greatest events that we ever did one day with coach Pat.
Joe Curto:You know, that's kinda what we do. We donate a ton of money and resources to every community group. Westchester County probably per capita has more not for profits than anywhere else in the world, and everybody that plays at the club is part of something. We generally will donate to almost anything and everything because it's just what we do, and it works out. We most of our customers are repeat.
Joe Curto:We have grandparents who were there when they were younger. We have their grandkids coming, and that's what you want. I mean, that's ultimately our advertising budget is almost zero because it's all word-of-mouth, and how you conduct yourself is what brings people back.
Kim Bastable:That's an impressive story, and I love that you have zero advertising budget, but you have an advertising plan. It's the people that have been there before talking about you. So that's great. So one of the challenges we have, I've noticed through the director of Racquet Sports program at the University of Florida, many of the people that come up into our program are leaders because they are players, and they are strong leaders because they've led themselves on the tennis court. But that's sort of a self sufficient environment.
Kim Bastable:You you, you know, you eat what you kill. You you gotta take care of yourself. Yet leadership in your sense is delegation, is overseeing people, and you even had to stop doing the day to day and transition to let letting go so Simon could step in and and others have stepped in. How has that transition gone? How have you delegated?
Kim Bastable:How have you made that transition? Because it's similar to how a director of Racquet Sports has to make one.
Joe Curto:Yes. Correct. How did it go? Not easy. Anyone who's self employed for all intents and purposes has a drive and a thought process that they can do things better than anybody else.
Joe Curto:It's kinda what fuels us. The flip side of that is we tend to think that we know more probably than what we really do. So as I delegate, sometimes in the back of my head, I'm saying, well, you know what? I could do it differently. I've done it differently.
Joe Curto:I and I've done everything at the club other than teach tennis, which is a good thing. So I know what goes into these things. When the court vacuum guy says it takes two hours to do the court, he said, It doesn't. It takes an hour and a half. But you have a way of doing it, and as long as you're doing a good job, I can live with your two hours.
Joe Curto:Just make sure you're doing a good job at it. And, you know, you have to have trust and a mutual respect. So I will trust Simon to make the right decisions. I will trust and verify, which is always the case. But he's gotta be doing everything for the right reason.
Joe Curto:And the right reason being I'm representing the club, and I'm doing the best I can to make this club what it is you told me you want it to be when you hired me. And it's mutual. And he has the same to me. You promised that we were gonna do this. You're gonna invest money in the club.
Joe Curto:You know, I'm gonna hold you to it. So I didn't just sell him a bag of whatever you wanna call it to get him in the door. And it's a mutual conversation. You know, we used to get together all the time. We would go out to eat and have conversations.
Joe Curto:I didn't necessarily agree with everything he said. Took probably three or four years to get blended lines in the club because I was stubborn and want you paint my tennis courts with these line things. But I gave in, and it was one of the better things that we probably ever did. You know, and come at me with facts and details. Don't just shoot from the hip because you're a great tennis player.
Kim Bastable:Well, and I hear you saying it's a conversation, and it's a process. Correct. It's not as if you're gonna hire and then just, you know, put someone in charge, and then as you say, not go back and verify. And I guess that's probably what challenges people is they expect it to happen the first time well, and when it doesn't, they get discouraged, and they maybe pull back control. So sounds like you over the years, it took you a while.
Kim Bastable:Would you give an estimation of how long the process took till you were comfortable?
Joe Curto:Well, comfort's a complicated word. I mean, I got comfortable fairly quickly. In our case, it actually worked out pretty well because I got involved with another club company with two other people. So I was away from the club more than I probably would have been normally. So there was a natural thing that happened because of that.
Joe Curto:When that club company fizzled, and I came back, the easiest thing I could have done was say, okay. I'm back in charge. I'm doing everything again. But I didn't because I stepped back and I looked and said, you know what? These guys really are doing a great job, and why should I get in the way?
Joe Curto:You know, and that's not easy. You look in the mirror, and you look at yourself and say, you know what? Somebody can actually do a better job than I can and you have to accept that. And I did and they did. They did a better job and they still do.
Simon Gale:I think also one of the things that contributes to that successful relationship anywhere is is the more somebody moving up into a role understands what the owner's expectations are and what it really costs and what's behind the scenes in making a club run. I don't think you understand that as a tennis coach who transitions to a leadership role. Think you just don't understand, for example, you know, a pro costs x per hour but with payroll taxes and balls and air conditioning and so on, this is what it costs per hour to run this place. And if you don't understand that, you just see money going in and money going out. And you think the owners line their pockets and all have Ferraris hidden in their garage and they don't drive into the club but they have a different life to you.
Simon Gale:So I think you do a great job of explaining that but that allows some back and forth on what it really takes to be a good leader.
Joe Curto:Yeah, mean, you you can look out the window and you can see six tennis courts and you can see people on all the courts, your first inclination is, wow. This place is busy. They must be making a fortune. But then there's a lot more to that. And I think when you sit down with the person or the persons and explain like, okay.
Joe Curto:The two people on Court 1 are actually playing on Court 1 because they have a makeup because somebody didn't do what they were supposed to do, so they're not actually paying anything. So looks great. But you know what? That's a negative for a couple of reasons. Now let's go over to Court 2.
Joe Curto:And then you just keep going through this very simple exercise. And I don't anticipate that the tennis pros or even the young director who starts is gonna understand everything and needs to know all of that. I think they just need to know the basic fundamentals that it costs a lot to keep an indoor building open in the Northeast. It's not all what it looks from the outside in, and sometimes you wanna look at it from the inside out. You know, we have insurance payments that are astronomical, and those payments are somewhat contingent on how we run the club.
Joe Curto:If people are tripping and falling all over the place, my premiums are gonna be substantially over. So when you take your cart at the end of your lesson, put it where it's supposed to do so somebody doesn't accidentally trip. And there's little things like that. You know, when you have a conversation about it, you know, everybody wants to get paid more than what they do get paid for all intensive purposes, and I would love to pay the unlimited amount, but we also have limitations. And it's conversation.
Joe Curto:And I'm not bashful with sharing information. I mean, I don't sit down with my p and l and go through it line by line with the entire staff. But, conceptually, they understand what we're doing and how we're doing it and why we're doing it. And if there's extra money left over, then I'm happy to distribute it. And what I share with the staff all the time is if I was only doing this for money, I would probably bring in Chuck E.
Joe Curto:Cheese or I would knock the building down because I've got 40,000 square feet on the New York State Thruway, but that's not what it's about. You know, we're building something and we've done a good job at it.
Simon Gale:So, Joe, as a part of this this podcast and and the director of Racquet Sport certificate and program that Kim's overseeing, we're going to see in our industry a lot of leaders transition out over the next ten years or so as our leadership ages. And there's going to be a large void, you know, which will present opportunities for young leaders to transition into being directors. And that's what we want. We want that next wave to come through and be our next group of leaders. What sort of skills do you see them needing in order to be successful outside of the obvious, hopefully, which is being a good coach?
Joe Curto:Well, you need empathy and you have to understand that it's not all about you. Sometimes a very successful tennis player, because that's what got them to that level, can be a little self serving, and no disrespect to anybody out there. But just understand that there are people that are different, and there are people within an organization and a team, and understand that it's the team and the makeup of different people in that team that will make the club successful. And you have to buy into that right off the start. If you come in as a whippersnapper, guns a blazing, that I'm gonna I know everything, you'll fail.
Joe Curto:And we've gone through that at my club with someone who is just not ready, and we put them in a bad spot. And just understand that your teammates are there for you, but you have to be there for them as well. You have to learn how to wear the hat of the person that you're supervising and what is the challenges that they have. And sometimes, you know, tennis pros forget what it was like to be a tennis pro when they become a director, and the title sometimes enamors them a little bit. And I've seen it many, many times.
Joe Curto:And you have sometimes just bring them back down and say, listen, don't you remember what it was like to do a lesson at eight in the morning and then come back from nine to ten and do a lesson? You know, you're a little dragon. So don't be so tough on that guy that maybe, you know, is having a little tough time right now.
Simon Gale:So you talk a lot And
Joe Curto:I think that's something that's important.
Simon Gale:And you talk a lot about good people and and empathy and and those type of skills required. How difficult is it to find good people these days to fill these roles you have?
Joe Curto:Good people's tough. You know, I think every industry is going through this right now. Business owners and no matter what it is, a deli, a conglomerate, a law office, they're all saying the same thing. How do we get good people? I think you hire character and if that person has character, you can teach them skills.
Joe Curto:Obviously, if you're coming into a leadership position, there has to be a basic skill set. But you first hire character, and that's what we do. What do you do? What do you like? When you come in with your resume that says that you won 32 junior tournaments, that's, you know, that's great.
Joe Curto:God bless you. But at the end of the day, what did you do in your spare time? What do you like to do in your spare time? How do you treat other people? When you taught tennis at this outdoor tennis club, did you ever do anything for somebody that maybe didn't give you something back in return?
Joe Curto:And those little things that kinda show what type of person that you've got. Do you have a work ethic? So if you show up for a job interview, are you there fifteen minutes early? Have you been to the club before the interview so you have some sense of what the building is like and the layout? There's nothing worse than the person who barrels in right at the time and says, hi.
Joe Curto:I'm here. You know, that's not how you make a first impression. And it's the same thing on the tennis court. In my younger days when I was a little more antsy and ornery, I guess you could call it, every once in a while when we were interviewing a pro, I would actually take a lesson from them and just not say that I'm the owner and just see how they conducted themselves. And one kid came in fifteen minutes late.
Joe Curto:He walks out on the tennis court, and he says, oh, I'm sorry. I'm late. And I said, okay. That's okay. Things happen.
Joe Curto:He goes, but don't worry about it. We can pick it up on the back end. I looked at him like, okay. Well, first of all, you're not picking it up on the back end. And second, well, where the heck did you come from?
Joe Curto:That's not gonna work in my club. You know, when you you hire character, that's I think that's ultimately what it's about. When Simon came on board, you knew right off the bat just by the way he spoke. It had nothing to do with the funny accent that he had. He had a work ethic, and he came from roots.
Joe Curto:And his brother Chris, who worked at the club as well, the same thing. They really were just solid people that you knew once they kinda figured it out at our facility, they were gonna be successful, and they were. And they both went on from us, you know, disappointingly, but, you know, one went on to be a club owner, and the other went on to, you know, have this phenomenal job. And, you know, when I gave a reference for Chris for his job in Houston, I couldn't, you know, rave more about the guy, and I'd hire him back in a second. So, you know, that's what it's all about.
Joe Curto:It's a people business. We're there to please people. We're there to excite people, and you need people who can do that kind of stuff and have that kind of DNA in their system.
Kim Bastable:So once you find them, as Simon says, they're tough to find and, you know, how do you compensate them so they stick around? I think that's the next kind of question we wanna answer a little bit. And just before we do that, I think there's always an element when you have a director of Racquet Sports that you they're not on court all the time. They won't be making the commissions of lessons all the time, maybe a little. But how did you, master that?
Kim Bastable:How much do you leave a director on the court, or lee have them have time for the administrative role?
Joe Curto:I mean, the directors that we've had have all been on the tennis court in some capacity. Our current tennis director has a cap of twenty hours a week. Now he's a bulldog. That's an absolute workhorse, so I don't have to worry about the physical and the mental strain just because of his DNA. But generally, between ten and twenty hours, we want that person on the court, one, because we're a small club and I can't just fund salaries across the board.
Joe Curto:But two, if we target who they teach and how they teach, a lot of these people who are in this position have clients that are willing to spend in large capacities that want that specific person. So my current director has kind of a group of people that, you know, when you pull up their sheets, you know, they're spending big dollars either with their kids, their husband, their aunt, their uncles, and so you have to kinda accommodate those people to an extent as well. So you're not just going out there teaching a private tennis lesson because somebody picked up the phone and said, you got anybody at twelve? No. You're teaching very targeted specific people because they fit into the master plan of the club.
Joe Curto:And, also, it gives keeps them grounded. You know, being on the court, what I've always been told is the easier part than being in the office. And if it can keep you grounded and show your fellow tennis pros that you're in there in the trenches with them, I think there's value to that. It's not easy on the director's side. I mean, you know, Simon can attest, going from court to administrator all within thirty seconds, sometimes because you're getting handed a piece of paper and said, missus Jones is screaming bloody murder.
Joe Curto:You have to deal with that on a fly. That's not easy. But I think in a small club, it works. In Simon's campus, I can't imagine how that would work because you're managing a massive amount of people. But for us, it does work.
Joe Curto:And we're sympathetic to feedback from the individual, you know, when is too much too much, when is not enough not enough.
Simon Gale:And I think that's different for every director. Right? I mean, depends on your Yes. Your ability to have that balance and manage the off court and you're wearing a lot of hats and I think at a small club, that is normal. You wear a lot of hats at a bigger facility like the campus, you've got a bigger team and more layers of leadership so you have a little more help.
Simon Gale:But I think, you talked to it earlier, finding good people, I think you've always been able to find good support system for that director that gives them the ability to go on a court and come off and not have to do everything. They have people around them that help make them better as well. So I have a question that kind of goes in line with this leadership concept is Kim and I have talked about whether a manager of a facility really needs to have tennis experience. And I think you can share that story, a your own, but also other people you've had in leadership roles that maybe weren't tennis coaches or former directors and how that balance between the manager and the director can work at a facility.
Joe Curto:Leaders lead and good leaders can lead. When you see a business fail, a lot of time it's because of a lack of leadership. Now I don't necessarily know a lot about tennis. I mean, if you said, Joe, show me a Western forehand, I I probably start cracking up because I couldn't tell you exactly how that's gonna work. But I also have to have an insight to know that I do need people like this, who do know this stuff, and we're in this together.
Joe Curto:So I need you, but you know what? You need me too. And when I first started with coach Pat, who Simon referenced, you know, he always wanted to be the guy. And when he didn't get the guy the job, and I was the guy, and I was this young kid with a tie on and a diploma, he looked at me and he said, you're my boss? And I said, Pat, you're gonna live with me.
Joe Curto:I'm gonna live with you. And if you do what you're supposed to do and I do what I'm supposed to do, we're both gonna get along really well. And we did. And I think that's important. So knowing your limitations.
Joe Curto:There's things I can't do. There's things Simon can do. And Simon has to have that ability also to reach out and say, listen. I don't understand this. Can you help me?
Joe Curto:And I have to be willing to provide that. And it's a reciprocal relationship.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. You've provided so much good information, Joe. I mean, that's great examples. I've taken away a few things I wanted to note, and then maybe Simon has a couple takeaways, and then maybe you have, Joe. But the idea you talked about that book, that setting the table, I mean, that's a great reality.
Kim Bastable:We're in the hospitality business, and and we can learn from other industries. It's really good. I love that you mentioned empathy is one of the highest important most important things. And I I really like that you think about targeting what a director does is regarding their on court time. That's really significant.
Kim Bastable:It's not just go out and teach a lesson. It's go out and teach the right lessons. And that was that I think is really good information, and I I'm sure that's one reason you've been continually successful. Simon, do you have some others and then maybe we'll let Joe share a couple last thoughts.
Simon Gale:Yeah, it's interesting. Joe and I have known each other for twenty years and I continue to call him a friend and value the relationship. But it's interesting doing this formally and hearing how he summarizes his leadership style and what's important. There's a consistency to twenty years here and it's the same story throughout and I think that's what makes him successful and his employees want to work for him. He talks about empathy and taking care of people and how you treat people, but also hiring good people and then letting them be successful and let them do what they are good at versus micromanaging and getting in their way.
Simon Gale:So you know, that's a twenty year message I've heard and it's nice to hear it, you know, today again. So I thank you for your thoughts, Joe, and your leadership and I know everyone who works for you feels the same way. So we're gonna turn it over to you and maybe you've got some final thoughts on a couple of key takeaways or points you would like to leave everybody, hearing.
Joe Curto:Yeah. I mean, just, you know, a couple of quick points. As much as you have to let them succeed, you have to also let them fail. And, you know, you have to just let them experience failure because sometimes in the tennis business, a lot of people who are very successful haven't experienced that failure part. And in business, you fail a lot, and you gotta just fall down sometimes.
Joe Curto:My my dad was a classic example, and just get up and figure it out. Why did you fail? And how are you not going to fail the next time that you do the same thing? So I don't mind if people make mistakes. Just don't make the same mistakes repetitively, and that's important.
Joe Curto:And another thing that I'd like to instill in people is, you know, we all, in our day to day lives, experience things that we think are good businesses. You know, we have a favorite coffee shop. We have a favorite restaurant, which is what I tend to focus on. We have things that we think are really good and that we value. Now why do you value that coff what does that coffee shop do that the guy down the street doesn't do?
Joe Curto:And next time you go buy your cup of coffee, just be observant. So what is it? Is it because that the woman who made your latte with the little sunshine on the top pointed out how she did it and she smiled and you smiled back? Bring that same mentality to the tennis court. You know, when missus Jones and her partners come on to the court and you know that their kids just graduated middle school, first comment, how was middle school?
Joe Curto:Did you guys have a party? Did you congratulations to your son. And that right there just set the table for the rest of the lesson. You could do no wrong at that point. And they're just little things.
Joe Curto:I mean, the world is, you know, little things done repetitively. And I think if we could take that home, you know, we would have a better tennis club. We would have a better industry and, you know, see a bigger picture. It's not all about just you and my lesson and how much money am I gonna make today. It's about setting the tone for something bigger.
Joe Curto:And I think the successful clubs do it. I mean, Simon did it at his club that he took over. It's being done at the USTA. I see club owners all over the place that do a great job. They do it differently than I do it, which is fine.
Joe Curto:But there are a lot of good stuff out there, and raise your hand. Ask question. You'd never stop learning. I mean, I'm 62. I still ask questions to people that, you know, how do you do this?
Joe Curto:Why do you do that? And, you know, we just brought in a consultant, friend of Simon's Doug Cash. Help us. How do we think differently? Because just because we've been doing this for forty years and we think we do it well, does that mean that we know everything?
Joe Curto:No. Of course not. And be receptive to those comments. And that's how you learn, and you should learn all the way to the day that you can't learn anymore.
Kim Bastable:That's excellent. Very good. Great summation. Good advice. We really appreciate your time, Joe.
Kim Bastable:I wish there's tons more owners like you out there. I'm sure there are. We haven't identified them all yet, but this was a great start in hearing a really good success story. So we appreciate your time, and that's all for today on Racquet Fuel. We'll see you next time.
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