About Us
Who Are We
Club Flows™ is a private golf club membership consultant which can identify a club’s Sweet Spot™, devise a 5-Year Full Membership Plan and help drive the profitable transition to full membership.
Our Philosophy
A private golf club can be most successful operating at full membership, providing it can be done so profitably. Full membership allows a club to minimize its dues and maximize its revenues and competitive advantage in its market area. It insures that it will be a survivor in the era of overcapacity and consolidation.
Unfortunately, a market area can only support a limited number of clubs operating at capacity, so the sooner a club commits to a full membership plan the better.
Principal Bio: John Vorberger, President, Founder
Dr. Vorberger previously worked as a commodity trader, principal and entrepreneur in the Metals Industry for almost 30 years. During that time, he managed world-wide commodity positions for Phibro-Salomon Brothers, founded and managed Vorberger Group Ltd., an international metals trading company and directed Enron’s metals business.
John Vorberger has a B.S in Metallurgy from Penn State University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Engineering from North Carolina State University.
He served on the BOD of Sewickley Heights Golf Club, located in western Pennsylvania, for nine years. He held the posts of Membership Chair, Treasurer, Vice President and President.
Background
John Vorberger founded Club Flows Inc. on the principals developed during a multi-year process to fill membership at his home club, Sewickley Heights Golf Club. In 2009, the club was floundering, active membership was 100 members below capacity and there was no free cash flow. The club’s high dues and membership structure were preventing it from growing. Dr. Vorberger, who was president at that time, realized that the only way for his club to succeed was to operate at capacity, but the BOD was very skeptical. So, he developed a financial model which identified the optimum dues levels and membership structure necessary to profitably fill membership and provided projections of future financial performance of the club along it path to full membership. The new Membership Plan approved by the BOD slashed active dues by almost 25% to promote strong membership growth. It took 5 years for the club to reach its goal of full membership with annual revenue gains of almost $500,000.
The new dues level which Sewickley Heights instituted in 2009 to profitably promote strong membership growth is what we now refer to as a club’s Sweet Spot™. The financial model developed by Dr. Vorberger is now known as the Club Flows Model™. And, the full membership plan which the club followed during its multi-year transition to full membership is now known as our Five-Year Full Membership Plan™.
