In a great tennis town,
one spot just keeps getting sweeter.
At least three indoor tennis clubs in the St. Louis metro area have closed since the turn of the century.
It’s hard to believe they weren’t at least nominally profitable. But they sat on real estate so valuable it was hard to justify the use of that land for such a seemingly frivolous, low-margin purpose.
Yet the land sitting under Frontenac Racquet Club is likely worth millions more. And in 2011 that club added 2½ courts.
What’s made the difference?
Look for key drivers of Frontenac’s success, and you’ll soon see a hundred small signs of the deft hand and genial personality of general manager Terry Ward. His let-them-run-with-it management style motivates anyone with an ounce of energy, staff or not, and builds a big space for tennis pros to grow a following and build a career.
Pieces of the puzzle.
Margin-friendly pricing – with discounts offered rarely, strategically and unpredictably – have helped the club thrive.
Branding, our charge since 2006, has contributed another, sizable, piece.
An evolving web presence.
Online, we’ve grown from a static site to a responsive, dynamic one built on WordPress and Genesis.
Put another way, the pieces of Terry’s puzzle, as he calls them – pricing, promotion, people, programs – come together to form a single, powerful brand that has become the dominant force in tennis across the region.