This week, Brad and guest Eric Touchet, owner of Touchet Performance Golf, explore the powerful parallels between mastering the fundamentals of golf and building a successful business. Eric walks through the evolution of his business, from the early challenges of getting started to the lessons learned about teamwork, relationships, and growth. Along the way, he offers stories and insights that resonate not only with golfers but also with entrepreneurs and small business owners.

This conversation is about more than golf, it’s about passion, commitment, and the belief that consistent practice leads to lasting success. 

Noll Team Real Estate

SINCE 2003, Noll Team Real Estate HAS BEEN HELPING PEOPLE IN THE FORT WAYNE AREA FIND THE FREEDOM TO LIVE THE LIFESTYLE THEY WANT.

DESPITE CHANGING MARKETS AND BUSINESS TACTICS, WE HAVE REMAINED TRUE TO THIS BETTER AND IMPROVED BUSINESS MODEL BY FOCUSING ON BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS AND SERVING OTHERS IN EVERYTHING WE DO.

WHATEVER STAGE OF LIFE YOU ARE IN, OUR GOAL IS TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THE WISDOM AND TOOLS NECESSARY WHEN BUYING OR SELLING A HOME. WE PUT YOU FIRST TO ENSURE AN ENJOYABLE AND PROFITABLE EXPERIENCE.

Welcome to Student of the Game podcast where we help you master the fundamentals, fall in love with practice, and win at the game of life. I'm your host, Brad Noll. Welcome to the classroom. Welcome back to another episode of Student of the Game.

I'm with my buddy, my, my club fitter, Eric Touche from Performance Golf. Touchet Performance Golf. Thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Tell us a little bit about Touchet Performance Golf. What do you guys do? You know, it's in the name Performance Golf. If I come to you, I just feel like my performance gets that much better.

But tell the listeners what you guys do at Touche Performance Golf.

Yeah, absolutely. So the main thing that we do at Touche Performance Golf is club fitting. So we fit everything from a putter all the way to driver.

We even do ball fittings. But that's our main thing. That's. That's the majority of our business. But over the years, we've added some stuff. We've added bays.

So we have five trackman bays, four that you can rent out, one that's just for fittings. But the cool thing, maybe four years ago, it was right after Covid, we added a gym. So a full gym, a PT room.

And then we hired a physical therapist that does golf specific stuff. So, you know, it does stuff for injury prevention. But then also he works on different injuries because he's actually a pt, like a doctor.

So he is TPI certified. So we're kind of trying to be a one stop shop and then we also offer lessons. There's a guy that does lessons at the shop as well.

So we try to do all three of those things under one umbrella. We have putt view, putting green, and then we have a men's and women's locker room. We even have a cold plunge and a sauna for Jared's.

He's our PT that his clients and really our clients can use if they'd like. But the main thing is fitting and the performance aspect is, you know, body swing and then golf equipment.

That's awesome.

So if you don't like golf, you may not need to listen to this podcast, but if you're a small business owner, I guarantee you're gonna get something out of this. So, Eric, you're explaining where you're at today. My guess is that's not where you started.

It is not where I started.

I think you and I, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you and I met at the 5am basketball league at the YMCA.

At the YMCA. I missed those days. Those are pre kids for me, at least.

Pre kids. And I was in shape back then.

Yeah, me too.

Me too. So why don't you give the listeners, the small business owners specifically want to know. Okay, that's awesome that you got here to where you're at.

But what was starting? Like, how did you get into the business of golf fitting here in Fort Wayne?

All the jobs I was getting were, you know, had nothing to do with my college education. Very low paying, not satisfying. So I ended up deciding to move to Fort Wayne. I did not live in Fort Wayne at all my entire life.

And my parents moved here when I was in college. So I was just like, I'll just move here, have free rent for a little bit, and then move back to Wisconsin where I'm from.

And I started reading books about owning your own business, how to do it, the easiest way financially to start it, if you don't have an idea. And I came across franchises. So I started to look at franchises, different ideas.

I started going to banks to look at SBA loans, stuff like that, just to, you know, put my job in my own hands kind of deal. And I looked at probably 15 different businesses, only three of them I was super interested in. And then I came across a golf one.

And the funny thing is that I don't know if this is. God, I don't know if this is luck. I did so much research, like what not to do, what to do, you know, the advice.

And then I kind of like turned my brain off and stopped doing research when I saw golf. And if I did any more research, I would not have done the company that I went with because they were terrible. The reviews were terrible.

They ended up being terrible. So I really got lucky that I was able to get in the door with this company. It was called Gulf Etc. That's what we opened up 15 years ago as Gulf Etc.

And they didn't support us whatsoever. They went back on stuff they were supposed to do and all this. So we were able to get out of that pretty early. And then they went out of business.

So that really helped us financially because they couldn't come after us, but it got us open. But my God, as you know, as a business owner, it was tough.

I mean, thank God for my wife that she worked and that she was supportive because I was working 70, 80 hours a week and I wasn't Making any money. I was probably. I think at one time we calculated like $2 an hour or something. It was something ridiculous like that.

But I was an optimist and thought, you know, someday I'm going to make money and this is going to be fun.

There's dozens of times I thought we were going out of business, but you just got to keep believing, keep trying, and there's a little bit of luck to it, right?

I mean, you meet somebody that's influential, that that helps your business, and that leads to the next one and then the next one, and you just got to keep at it. I mean, it is. It is not for the faint of heart.

There were so many times that I couldn't sleep at night and thought about going quitting and going into the real world and, you know, getting a normal paycheck, working for a big company. But, yeah, I just kept at it, and one thing led to another, and then we got a break, and then something went bad and another break. And it was fun.

I mean, looking back at it, I had a blast. But my God, it was a lot of sleepless nights. And then when you start having kids, makes it even more difficult because then you got to support them.

But, yeah, it was a long time, but it was fun. Really cool experiences. You meet so many cool people, like meeting you, talking to you about your success and what success looks like for you.

And then there's so many business owners that give you advice and the fun journey, but very, very long and taxing, for sure.

Well, thanks for sharing kind of the background on that. Because if you're a small business owner and you've been in business for more than two years, you've probably wanted to quit.

You know, if you're a small business owner and you've had sleepless nights, like you're normal, you know, if you're a small business owner and sometimes you lose hope, that's normal.

And I think what's really cool having you on this podcast is I've kind of seen you, you know, in the infancy stages and iterate multiple times and grow. And, you know, let's. Let's be honest. When I, when we met playing basketball at the ymca, I was like, yeah, I'm a golfer. I'll come in.

And.

And it was one of those things where it's like, okay, you know, do you sell head covers? Do you sell polos? Do you sell golf ball markers? You know, what do you do? And come to find out, you know, you're.

You are a student of the game, pun Intended in terms of understanding the swing, swing analysis, and then helping people feel and become better with custom club fittings. In this podcast, we talk about master the fundamentals in every business.

I don't care if you're a banker, if you sell T shirts, if you do club fittings, if you're in real estate, if you're a financial advisor. There's fundamentals to the business. And so in this podcast, we like to talk about how do you master the fundamentals?

We talk about how to fall in love with practice.

You know, what you just said, what you embody is somebody who fell in love with the grind, fell in love with chasing something that you know was appealing to you. And then ultimately, how do you win at the game of life? And so let's take a little bit and just talk about what are the fundamentals of club fitting.

Yeah, so, I mean, everyone's different, right? Everyone's going to have a different body type, different skill sets, different golf swing.

So it's just about adapting to that person, and it's trial and error. In the beginning, I studied under an individual for a few months, but in reality, I was still, you know, novice at the fitting aspects.

You just have to learn as you go. And you make mistakes, right?

I mean, there's plenty of times that I made mistakes as a fitter, and you got to own those mistakes and fix those mistakes because you can't tell the customer, well, good luck. You got to fix what you did wrong, but then you get to learn from them.

I mean, maybe I did a build wrong or I recommended something wrong, and instead of getting angry and blaming the customer, you just work with them and make it better. And those customers could be lifelong customers.

There's plenty of stories I have of 12, 13 years ago of screwing up a fitting that they've continued to be fitting or customers of mine because they trust me, because I told them, yeah, that was wrong, my bad, let's fix it kind of deal. So, yeah, it's about thinking that every customer is different. Every person's different.

They have a different budget, they have a different skill set, they have a different need or want. And taking the time to talk through that and understand what they want and then doing right by them.

I mean, that's a mentor of mine told me that if you look at a customer as your best friend and how you would treat your best friend or your brother or your mom or your dad, and you forget about that sometimes, right? I mean, there's times that I've been not the nicest to a customer.

And you got to step back and be like, hey, like, they're the only reason that you're paying your bills. Whether they're spending $100 or $5,000, that's irrelevant.

They're spending their hard earned money and you got to respect them and you got to treat them right. But then you also have to, you know, I know what you're doing and you got to study the stuff that you're doing. You got to back up what you're doing.

And then there comes to a point that I've gotten that I'm pretty educated on knowing every shaft, every head, and I'm able to fit somebody a lot more precisely and just take time and effort, really.

So when it comes to. Thanks for sharing.

You know, the kind of the behind the scenes and how you got to where you're at and what I think of fundamentals in terms of golf is it's kind of like there's your swing and then there's your equipment.

Right, Right.

And so like, how many times. And I'm not.

We don't need to name names here, but how many times does somebody come in and be like, man, you'd be such a better golfer if you fix your swing first. Yeah. Is it hard? Is it hard to fit everybody? And, and, and answer this question too. So, like, what's the difference? Back to the fundamentals.

What's the difference between. Between buying clubs off the shelf versus getting them custom fit?

Yeah, so buying them off the shelf is going to be very generic, like lengthwise, lie wise and some. Obviously listeners have no idea what I'm talking about with lie angle, but nevertheless, it's very generic.

There's only one shaft, one weight of the shaft, one stiffness of the shaft. But everyone needs something different.

So a golf club for people that don't play golf will help change your ball flight in the sense of making a ball go higher, make it and go lower, helping with left to right, right to left. It helps all of that or bad, because it's about mastering your bad swings. Because everyone's going to have a bad swing no matter how good you are.

You know, your bad swings for a guy that's really good is different than your bad swings for someone that shoots 100. But it's about mastering those bad swings.

So getting fit for the right clubs will a lessen those mishits, but then improve on those mishits that you know what direction it was going to go. Like, if you are able to like just say, let's say you miss it right.

If you're able to miss it right consistently, you can technically take out half the golf course. You aim left. If you hit it straight, you're on the left side of the fairway, left side of the green.

If you do miss normally, right, you're in the middle of the green, middle of fairway, right side. So you're able to cut off half the golf course.

I mean, that's a 50% better shot dispersion and getting fit for that instead of, there's, there's so many people that try, try to just aim straight and just pray to God that it's going to go straight. And that's just, that's just hard to do for most golfers.

So you need to treat yourself as a specific person that has specific swing and get fit to that swing. Because back to your point about the golf swing.

Yes, 95% of my fittings, I mean, I'd say 100% need to get lessons because that's the other aspect of the golf game. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and tell you to get fit and you'll become a scratch golfer.

That's a 300 yard drive as soon.

As you buy a driver from Eric. Exactly. I'm never going to, I try to manage expectations. But to be realistic, most golfers aren't going to practice as much as they should.

I mean, unless you're, you're a high level golfer. Like your, your daughter, for example, she, she practices, I'm sure 20 times as much as I do. I mean, because she's an elite golfer.

She's a collegiate golfer. Yeah, right, exactly. So like you need to, you need to get the fundamentals down, but just get fit to your golf swing.

If you, if your swing changes from a fitting or from a lesson. Excuse me. Yes, we will work with that.

The likelihood of it changing enough to, for the fitting not to be correct is pretty low because they're not going to change enough for the. What I'm getting in the fitting data to actually matter for a change in the fitting. Both are just as important, but they kind of work together.

They coincide together. The lesson and the fitting. If you're doing both correctly, I have a question.

We talk about mastering the fundamentals and a lot of times. So first of all, if you're not a golfer, here's what I want you to hear.

If you are a golfer, this is going to be a great show for you because there's so much information about golf that Eric and I are going to talk about that, I think you're just going to learn, and you'd probably be a better golfer. Matter of fact, go over to Touche Performance Golf and get fit. That's a. That's a shameless plug.

But if you're not a golfer and you're a small business owner, I need you to listen to this. In small business, there's always two businesses at stake. There's the industry that you're in, and there's running of the business, right?

So, like Eric, you're in the fitting business. So you need to know everything. You need to know about fittings, golf clubs, shafts, balls, shot, dispersion, everything you just talked about.

You need to know your business. But now there's a second part to matching these fundamentals, which is you got to grow your business. Right?

I mean, you and I, if I could put this out there. You and I share bookkeepers.

Like, you know, as a business owner, as a small business owner, you know, are you the one who's doing all of your accounting, which is taking you away from doing your fittings? Are you the one who's mowing your yard and taking you away from your fittings? Are you the. You see what I'm saying? There's.

There's two businesses at stake. Talk about, talk about the business of club fitting. Like, how do you get customers? How do you, how do you grow? How do you.

How do you take care of, you know, the relationships that you're building? You know, when it's. When it's in the golf industry.

Yeah. So everything that we do is by word of mouth and social media. So we don't spend a ton on advertising, which is a benefit for us.

But back to your point about our bookkeeper, shameless plug Becky, she's unbelievable, first of all. But, I mean, there's a lot of business owners that try to do everything right.

They're scared to give up control of anything, but that is impossible to grow. Then, like, if you were your only real estate agent, you probably wouldn't be as successful as you are right now. Correct.

We wouldn't be on this podcast, Right?

Exactly. You'd be out showing homes right now. It's the same thing with me. If I.

If I did all the fittings, all the builds, which I used to, because, I mean, I didn't have any money to pay anybody. I would not be where I am today. I used to have to block off two, three hours a day and not do fittings to do builds.

Otherwise, I'd come home at midnight and you can't do that with three kids. I mean, that's, that's just not possible. So you have to hire people that a, that you, that trust. But then you have to give up control.

I do 5% of my builds now. When I used to do 100, I've given that all to Keegan.

And to be fair, Keegan's a better builder than I am because I'm not thinking about my next fitting. I'm not thinking about doing it quickly. He's just doing the build. Right.

He knows the quality is important, that, yes, he has to do it quickly, but he doesn't build, he doesn't rush like I used to do, because I had to. So you have to give up control. My long term goal would also add a fitter so we can do more fittings that I'm just not there quite yet.

But you have to be able to start giving up things because that's the only way that you're going to grow as a business owner. Because you cannot do everything. You're going to hit a plateau. I mean, there's a ceiling that I hit.

I'm not going to say I know in my head what the number is financially, but I hit that for two or three years and I could not get through it other than if I wanted to work 100 hours a week. But again, three kids, a wife, that's not what I'm going to do.

So you have to hire people, you have to trust them, and if they don't work out, you fire them. Yeah, but you're going to find someone. And I found the best employee I've ever had. And I hope he never leaves.

Luckily, you found a house for him that wasn't two hours away, so thank you for that. But I, I can't tell you how much Becky and Keegan have meant to my business, and Colin for that matter. But we'll talk about him later.

But it's unbelievable to get the right people, people that you trust, people that care about your business. It's just a godsend. That's the only way you can grow.

I love how you talk about the team. One of my favorite press conferences I've ever seen was Jordan Spieth after a round. And he never used the word I.

He always said, we, we did this and we decided to do this and we decided to do this. And for most people, they're like, who are you talking about? We're talking about his caddy. Right? Him and his caddy are a team.

And if Jordan hits a bad shot, then we hit a bad shot. If he hits a good shot, then we hit a good shot. If. If they win the tournament, then we won the tournament.

And what you're talking about is exactly why I started this podcast. Student of the Game was built from the master's degree that I got playing basketball and learning everything about business in the locker room.

It was about teamwork. It was about working hard. It was about never throwing somebody under the bus. You know, the.

You know the worst way to build culture is when you're talking about negatively about your team behind their back.

Right.

Like. Like, you just can't do that. And.

And so I appreciate you sharing a little bit of that, but, you know, as it relates to sports and business and where they intersect is, you know, if you want to be great, you got to fall in love with practice. You got to fall in love with the repetitiveness, the routine, the mundane, the boring you get. You got to work when nobody's watching.

I'm just gonna guess Keegan's a better builder. Not just because of what you said of. He's focusing on that, but. But you were also a better teacher when you met Keegan.

You know, talk about falling in love with the practice. Like, talk about the practice of club building and then the practice of club fitting. You do tens of thousands of these.

You've got tons of data on these. Talk about, like, actually falling in love with building the clubs. Talk about falling in love with the fittings.

What are you doing behind the scenes that nobody's seeing?

Yeah. So it's about studying up on various shafts. Heads. I used to listen to Gary Vee a lot. The.

I know seven, eight, nine years ago, and he talked about that. So many people told him, like, I've listened to your podcast and your talks, and you repeat yourself constantly.

And his response was my favorite ever. He said something along the lines of, well, if it's right, why does it matter if I'm repeating myself? Like.

And I. I thought to myself, like, because I used to try to change my verbiage in a fitting, like, just to be different, you know? And then I was. When I heard that, I was like, why. If I'm. If I'm. What I'm saying is correct, why can't I just repeat myself every single time?

And there's guys that will hit balls in there, and they'll come up to me, like, you say the same thing every time. And I'm not saying during the fitting, but, like, explaining things of the fitting, like, why.

Why you need to get fit, what the numbers mean he's like, I literally say the exact verbiage. And I explained it to him, like, why wouldn't I do that if it's correct? And like, that's a really good point.

So it's just about believing in what you're doing, knowing it's correct. But then you need to go with. The industry changes all the time. There's. There's different fitting philosophies that I've studied under other people.

Once we've gotten big on social media, I've gotten reached out by a lot of different people. But what they think, how they think I've studied. Some of it, some of it I don't agree with, some of it I do.

And I've incorporated some of that into my business because we're learning things all the time of what shafts do, how they do it, what's important, what's not important. Important how heads are different. Some. Some things that manufacturers say that are.

Are just bold, and some of them that, that work because you have to. You. You. You hear what they're saying, but then you have to study it in the simulator. You got to see if they're.

What they're saying is accurate, what if it's correct? But you just have to know every little nuance of every new club, every new shaft, and what works, what doesn't, what's true, what's not true.

And then the building process is just precision. You have to be as precise. It goes. It's hard to explain to, you know, non golfers, but it's.

It's so precise in not just the length of the golf club, but it's the weight, it's the distribution of weight, it's the lie angle, it's the loft, it's the specificness of the shaft stiffness, the weight of the shaft. How you're putting all of that together has to be so precise to get the results you want to get. Because there's two steps. There's the fitting.

Like, if I was the best fitter in the world, but then the clubs that I fit them for were not correct, it's irrelevant, right? If I'm like, this is what you need, and then I give them something that's not even close to that, what's the point?

So you need to have both of those aspects, and they need to be built exactly as you fit them for to get the results that you want. And it's just all about precision.

It's also about checking your work two or three times to make sure you're Doing what's correct, and then the customers will see the results.

Well, a couple things for you small business owners. You needed to hear this part, and this is what I caught from you. My. You talked about being repetitive. That's not a problem.

Matter of fact, it's a good thing. My mentor, Donald Miller, says communication is an exercise in memorization.

If you're trying to communicate with somebody and they can't memorize what it is you're saying, you've lost them, you haven't communicated. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges in today, in society, in all of us, right. In the social media world. We have short attention spans.

We have a hard time remembering. I have a hard time remembering what Lindsey tells me to bring home at night, like, oh, I forgot the milk. Sorry.

But communication is an exercise in memorization.

And as a small business owner, you have to understand the most important thing is for your clients, your patients, your consumers, the people you serve, that they memorize what it is you need them to memorize. Another thing that we talk about is the only reason a business exists is to solve a problem.

I can tell you, Eric, firsthand, that the clubs that I've bought from you, it. It doesn't just make me a better golfer. I have to go out and practice. Like, I, you know, if I'm not practicing, I'm not gonna be a better golfer.

But when I am practicing, I do feel like these clubs were built for me. You know, I do feel like, you know, my shot dispersion, like you talked about earlier in the episode, is a lot tighter.

You know, my misses are better. And so I'm. I'm benefiting from this. Tell.

Tell me some of the stories you have that, you know, through all of your hard work with fittings, through all of your hard work with building the right clubs for people, what are some of the stories that. That people share with you? Like, you know, oh, I remember you always used to say, like, you know, your best client was the guy who out drives his.

His foursome. And the other three guys are like, okay, you know, Tommy's out driving me. I need a new driver now.

Like, tell me some of the success stories you've had with some clients.

Yeah, I mean, that. Those are the best. Right. Somebody's mad that his buddies hit him, hit it 10 yards shorter than him for 10 years.

Then all of a sudden he gets fit and he's 15 yards farther than him, and he's pissed. Those are. Those are the easiest clients. Right? But the coolest ones because we try to 6 to 12 months after fitting.

It's harder now because we're, and this is an excuse, but it's harder now because we're so much bigger and so much more busier. But we try to call our clients and be like, hey, how do you like the clubs?

Because if they don't, we want to find out, we want to help them, we want to bring them back in at no cost.

So the stories that I've heard are always, I'm going to say one specific at the end, but the ones that are coolest are the ones that have broke 100 for the first time, 90 for the first time, 80 for the first time. They went, they're single digit handicap for the first time, and they're just ecstatic.

The excitement that they're telling me on the phone is awesome. That's why we do what we do is just. Because what we do is working. I mean, If I make 100 phone calls, 99 of them are positive.

So our hit rate is quite high. And I'm not perfect.

And that's why we make the phone calls, because we want to know that stuff so they can bring them back in and we can fix what may be wrong for their golf clubs. But the specific one, I fit this gentleman, it had to be 10 years ago. Now, maybe he played at IU.

So he was an elite golfer, played in all the city tournaments around here and did okay. I mean, again, he's played at iu, so that's not like. What I'm about to say is I turned him from a crappy golfer to a really good golfer.

I mean, he's a very good golfer, but he was 6, 2, 6 3, really short arms. He should have been playing an inch longer. He was playing standard length. His coach at IU fit him.

And I was like, you know, you're supposed to be playing an inch long. He's like, no idea. He hit the ball a mile in the air, like 20, 30ft too high.

We brought his ball flight down, hit the ball about 15 yards farther off the tee, was able to, you know, actually stand up straight on his irons. I fit him, I think in May, April or May, and the city tournaments in August. And again, I'm.

What I'm about to say is not like, I'm not saying this guy's shooting 85 and then, then he wins. He's a very good golfer. But I was able to fit him and it was awesome. He asked me to caddy for him in the city tournament and he Ended up winning.

And it was just a cool, like, viewpoint of like, hey, if this guy played at iu, is an elite golfer, had no idea that his equipment was wrong. How many Joe Schmoes that are weekend golfers have no clue that their equipment is wrong? So that was like an aha moment.

Like this, this could be something like, because when we opened, fittings were not that big in the golf industry. Now they're huge. So we were ahead of it, luckily. But I was like, hey, if this guy didn't get fit right, this guy had no idea. An inch in golf.

Like, for guys that don't play golf, an inch in golf is. I mean, that's, that's absurd. Like, a half inch is big an inches.

Like, just imagine how precise you have to be in a golf shot if you're an inch too short, that you really have no chance. I mean, that's going to put so much pressure on your back. It's going to be. You're going to be moving up and down a ton. So that was a cool.

I mean, that was a really cool experience.

That three, four months after the fitting, he wins the city golf tournament, which for people that aren't from Fort Wayne that are listening to this, our city golf tournaments are pretty big deal. There's quite a few people that enter. There's really good golfers, a lot of collegian golfers. So it was a cool thing.

I mean, that was like, aha, like, hey, this thing works. There's not a lot of people that, that know how important it is. And, and it was, it was a really cool experience to be part of that too.

Well, and I think there's some confidence you can, you can glean to, like, most, most small business people sometimes, I think lack confidence when they're meeting with people. Like, I'll just, I'll be personal. For example, we help people that are going through a lifestyle change that need to make a change in their housing.

When I go to your home to talk to you about selling your home, I don't know your home as well as you'd know your home. Right. I'm an expert in the process. Like, I know. I know the process of helping people buy and sell homes. I know the conversations that need to happen.

And I know how to give somebody advice based on the situation that they're in. I don't know your home better than you know your home. And so where we step in, as an advisor, like, I see, I see you kind of in the same light.

Like, that guy was a Great golfer. He knows golf. He knows how to, you know, have a great golf swing to win tournaments.

And here you are just kind of manipulating, you know, his equipment a little bit so that it custom fits what his game.

And now all of a sudden you've, you've made a customer for life and, and he's telling everybody and that doesn't hurt that he's getting the exposure of winning city tournaments. And now he's a customer of yours. Student of the Game is brought to you by Knoll Team Real Estate.

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Let's talk before we get into winning at the game of life and how your business has kind of served you and your family.

We're kind of into the practice here a little bit, but for the listeners, we're going to have you go follow Touche Performance golf either on TikTok or Instagram. You guys are kind of blowing up a little bit. Why don't you share a little bit of kind of what you're doing on social media?

And this is what I want you small business owners to hear. You heard Eric started in a retail spot. Nobody knew he was a club fitter. Nobody knew what kind of business he was starting.

He was working 100 hours a week, right? Like you're in that same spot. You're working 100 hours a week. You don't know if your clients know what you actually do.

And now all of a sudden, his business is where it is today. So he's, he's an overnight success after 15 years. Talk.

Talk to the listeners a little bit about your social media and what you've done to kind of create this fun, engaging presence on social media.

So we launched our social media now, right when we opened 15 years ago, I think we maxed out at 2, 000 followers and that was combined Facebook and Instagram. I don't even know if we had a Tick Tock at two or three years ago is when we started Tick Tock I think. But it was just like random.

Like we would do like a spurts of like two or three weeks. We'd post a lot and then we wouldn't post for a month and just, just random stuff. Dude. Yeah, what's a. Yeah, like most small businesses. Correct.

And it had no like rhythm to it. It was just random. Right. It might be about a driver head and then it might be like a funny clip about like reposting something.

So it was never like consistent. There's no consistent message.

And then godsend, I just hired a high school kid that was a local high school kid named Colin Berta, I think two and a half years ago. And he just came up to me like three months into it's like, hey, do you mind if I run the social media? I was like, yeah, absolutely. What?

Can't be any worse than we are right now.

So he's going on social media, doing a ton of research and he comes across this doctor that does 60 second diagnosis where somebody will come up to him like, my arm hurts from blah, blah, blah, blah, what do you think it is? And he spout off what he thinks it is. And he had 300,000 followers. He's like, you should do this for fittings. I'm like, okay, whatever.

So he's like, let's do 60 second fittings. So he started off with, he would tell me, you know, a guy's height, swing speed, blah, blah, blah, as much data as he could.

And at first it was just made up because we had nobody submitting stuff. And it slowly got bigger and bigger and bigger. And then people started submitting their own numbers. And then we started getting a gigantic following.

We went from 2,000 to, I think our combined is 45,000 followers now.

And I get clients now from California, Virginia, Florida, West Virginia, Wisconsin that come in for fittings because they see these videos and it was just Colin suggesting to do these videos that were 60 second fittings.

He came up with the name, he came up with the idea and he would just throw a camera in my face, like when I didn't know and I wouldn't know the numbers and I would just say what came to my head. And it was very generic because I need to know way more data.

Like I'm not trying to fit these people, you know, in 60 seconds because that's ridiculous. But it was just starting point for, for these people. Like I always said, you got to go get fit in person.

But then it grew to the point that I'm selling golf clubs online now for people that submit enough data to me, like through email. And then I'll. Sometimes I'll do video chats with them and they're. And I'm selling golf clubs from people all over the country. And the. The.

What came about that is I have a high school friend who sold two businesses. He's a serial entrepreneur. He approached me and said, would you be interested in starting a online fitting AI? And I was like, I was just.

Keep talking. I was just going to go here because every business right now is talking about AI and nobody knows how to use it.

And I've seen a little bit from what you guys are doing. So explain how you're using AI right now. This is fascinating.

Yeah. So he came to me and said, I've submitted all of your TikToks into this AI building program to start.

Would you be interested in starting an AI fitter? And so what it basically is, is I feed this thing data and the. And he writes the program and the AI will. Will build the. Upon his program.

The fitting process now, it's. It's a. We were nervous at first. We were like, if this is like a.

Let's say it takes a month to do this thing, then we probably don't have anything because then anyone can do it. Right. But it's been seven months now, and it's still not even close to where we want it to be, but it's getting better and better.

But so we're just having this AI builder build this fitting, and we're calling it Eldrick. For. For you golfers, you'll know what that means.

But it's a cool process because we've gotten people from a following from South Korea, from Australia, because we want to make it worldwide, because that's like, I can only fit, you know, a certain amount of people a day. So I'm going to eventually hit a ceiling that I probably already capped out. What's the next step? Right. What if you want to get bigger?

And, and as a business owner, there's some people that would be fine with a cap, and I'm not, but I want. I don't. I want to be bigger. I want to have the aspect that I can go on vacation and still get paid. That's. That's the ultimate goal.

Every business owner, every small business owner right now just like, cringed in their seat. Listen to this. If you're walking the dog, you kind of maybe tripped over the curb or something.

If you're Driving, you maybe hit the brakes, drove off the side of the road. Please don't do that.

Every small business owner, the, the goal in life when you first start a small business is, can I go on vacation and leave my phone at home? Is my business still working when I'm not? And, and to get to that point, Eric, congratulations, because that's a really big deal.

But I love the fire that you still have. I love that you're, you're reinventing yourself.

I love that, you know, you're taking on what some people say like, oh, AI is not going to be around, or, oh, it's a, it's a bad thing, it's a good thing, or I'm neutral to it. And here you are taking and, and also pivoting and adding to your business.

Where can people find Eldrick and, and if they're curious about checking you out.

Yeah. So right now we have a beta site up.

It's Eldrick Golf is the website and Eldrick is E, L, D, R, I, C, K. If you don't know that is Tiger woods first name. That is the, the, you know the name behind it.

And if you don't know Tiger woods, then stop listening to this episode. You still get something about small business, but you're not a golfer.

If you know you're not a golfer now or you probably don't know. Yeah. Anyways, so it's just a beta site. It's, it's. We're trying to just accumulate data.

We're partnering with a couple other fitting studios to, to get their data as well. But it's just a slow process of, like, the AI assumes things, which we found out that are typically incorrect.

So we have to continuously correct the AI, but it just needs enough data that when a person submits, you know, A, B and C, it shoots out a correct fitting analysis. It's never going to be as good as in person fitting. I'm not. We're never going to say that, but we're just kind of closing the gap. Right.

I mean, right now it's. The gap is huge.

It's not even close to it, but we're just slowly closing the gap where now, let's just say hypothetically, it's 80% away and we want it to get to 10% away. That's when we'll take off the beta and start selling golf equipment.

Because right now, at the end of the rainbow, there's no, like, golf equipment recommendation. That's our next step. But it's a fun, It's a super Fun process. It's fun to do it with a, a childhood friend too, that knows this space.

And it's been fun working with him again because I've talked to him a lot over the years. But, you know, as you know, with high school college friends, you kind of lose touch. So it's been fun working with him.

He lives in Texas, so I was able to see him twice in the last year for this. So that's fun aspect too. I mean, just working with somebody like. But as you said, nobody knows anything about AI Truly. Right.

How long it's going to stay, if it actually works. But we're just diving into it knowing that it's going to be quicker than us building it. And it just needs more, more and more data.

And we're excited about it. We're excited about the future. It could be, it could be really, really big. There's so many different avenues that we're thinking about taking it.

We've been approached by a couple VCs. Yeah. So we're excited about long term, but we're taking it slow knowing that we don't want to release it fully until we're confident in the results.

From a, from a retail operation that I think now is a tanning salon in your old location to now building what you're building. I just, I love hearing your story because it's an encouragement for all of us.

You know, I was having this conversation with Lindsey the other day about her design business. Like, you know, it's, it's not that things get easier. Right. And this is Carol Lawson from Duke's famous quote.

It's like, it's not that things get easier. We just handle hard better. And I love that, I love that quote because it talks about, it talks about understanding that it just doesn't get easier.

Life doesn't get easier. Your small business is not going to get easier. The market's not going to get easier. Politics and religion is not going to get easier.

The media is not going to get easier. But we have to handle it better. And what you're doing is you're understanding where the opportunities are.

Speaking of opportunities, but let's just get right down to it. Winning at the game of life. So we've talked about mastering the fundamentals.

We've talked about falling in love with practice and all the things that you're doing behind the scenes, which I love. But winning at the game of life. How has building your golf brand, your fitting business, how has that given you lessons about life?

Like, what have you learned from it?

That you can't do it by yourself. Probably number one, like. Like when you start your own business.

Like, I hired two people that I fired pretty quickly, and I was like, I'm just going to do this by myself. Um, you need a team. Your team is so important. But, you know, you got to treat them right. You got to pay them, right?

Um, you got to pay them, like, what they're worth. You. You have to show them appreciation. There's so many times, as a man, you don't. How many times is.

You don't tell your wife that you love her enough. You don't tell her she looks beautiful enough, because you just take it for granted, right? So listening to my.

My wife Lauren, like, she's like, I'm telling. Like, Keegan's doing this. He's like, are you telling him that? Like, are you telling him how good he's doing?

It's like, well, probably not enough, right? So just sending your team, like, hey, man, you're doing a great job. Like, who doesn't like to hear that, right?

I mean, how many times did your dad say that when you're a kid, you're just like, oh, man, thank you. Or your coach or your friends or whatever. Like, who doesn't like hearing that? Doing a good job.

So encouraging your team, showing them that they're part of the team. It's just like, we're giving Keegan a piece of the business because he means so much. I'm not doing this just to keep him. Like, I wouldn't do that.

Like, if he was doing okay, I'd pay him and hopefully he would stay. But he's doing such a good job that I want to give him a piece of business. I want to show him, like, hey, you're part of the family.

You're so important that you cannot do it yourself. But it's all of that and it's falling in love. You have to love what you're doing, right? Nobody's going to.

You can pretend for a while that you like what you're doing.

But talking about sports, I mean, how many times has somebody been an unbelievable, believable athlete, but they just haven't gone or done as well as they could? They don't love it. They don't love basketball, they don't love football, they don't love tennis, golf. They were.

They know they're good at it, so they've done it professionally, but then they kind of just, like, you know, fell off because they're just. They didn't practice enough. They didn't care about it enough. You have to love what you're doing. You cannot pretend you're going to eventually start.

Stuff's going to start falling through the cracks. You got to love the process. As I've heard you say thousands of times, you have to love it.

I mean, there's no way your customers will suffer and then your business will suffer. You have to love what you're doing. You have to continuously grow because the industry, every industry changes.

There's no industry on planet earth that's going to stay the same forever. So you'll die if you don't grow with it and everything. And it's going to ebb and flow.

I mean, interest rates for you, I'm sure that's been a nightmare for ups and downs, but you, you just have to power through. There's. What do you. What else are you going to do?

I mean, yeah, you have to.

And then that's what you're talking.

We're in the lifestyle business, right? Like, people that are going through a divorce, they don't care what the interest rate is. They, they gotta move.

People, people that are getting married, it's like, well, whatever the interest rate is, we gotta move. And so that's why we want to make sure we tell people, like, we're in the lifestyle business.

When you're going through a lifestyle change and you need to make a change in your housing, that's what we're there for. You know, you're, you're in the business of solving the problem of like, hey, I'm. Golf is frustrating.

I'd like to be just a little less worse than what I am. I'd like to be just a little better than what I am. I'd like to actually out drive my buddy, you know, no matter what it takes.

Talk a little bit about the community involvement that you're in. We didn't talk about this offline here, but Dons for Fort Wayne is our local Division 1 men's basketball team, Purdue Fort Wayne.

There is a, There's a guy on the team that you've gotten to know and you've got a little history with. Talk about Dons for Fort Wayne and some of the things that you've done to support the nil cause here in town.

Yeah, so it was really cool. I, I follow Macedon Basketball on, on Instagram and this kid's name came up and I was like, man, that sounds familiar.

And one of my best friends growing up is the assistant basketball coach at the. Where I played high school basketball. And I text him. I was like, is this the kid that you coached? And he's like, yeah.

So his name's Max Nelson, and he went to my high school. And what's cool about that is I live six and a half hours away from here. I live in Appleton.

I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, so nowhere near Fort Wayne, Indiana. And I was like, that is insane that he went to my high school and then he's playing at the local college, which is a Division 1 college.

I mean, it's a. It's not, you know, a small college. It's a big deal. So I thought that was so cool, so I reached out to you.

I actually met his dad, who was a teacher at my high school, which I did not even know about. He said he recognized my name. I don't know if that was true, but. And I was like, is there anything I can do nil wise for this kid?

And he's like, well, he plays golf. So I was able to help him with some golf equipment for the nil aspect of it. And that was really cool, getting to know him a little bit.

My kids got to go in the locker room for a couple of games after the game, which obviously they absolutely loved. So it's been cool to get to know him a little bit and hopefully I can continue that process with the team, even if, you know, not from Appleton.

But it was a really. Just a cool experience that he came from my high school.

Awesome. Well, we'll wrap up the show here, but I think you small business owners, whether you golf or not, you heard probably your story in Eric's.

You started off, you were confused about how to get started. You maybe had a passion for the industry that you're in.

And over time, you just keep overcoming obstacles and overcoming obstacles and keep showing up and. And like they say, the best ability is availability. And Eric just kept showing up and tapping into mentors.

And then now all of a sudden, your business is tens of thousands of followers on Instagram and you've got different revenue streams and you've got employees that love working there and team members that now have become part of the business. And so that's awesome to see. That's exactly the message that we want to get across in student the game.

But winning at the game of life, we believe relationships win. And one of the things that we want to do. Eric, why don't you tell the listeners, like, where to follow you?

Like, what social channels are you big on and where can people follow you and consume some of your content?

Yeah. So Instagram and TikTok are our two biggest touche performance golf on both of them. There's also Eldrick AI on TikTok.

Eldrick underscore AI on Instagram for our AI fitter. Those are our two. Um, and then we do have a Facebook that's not as big, but I think that's just touche golf, if I'm not mistaken.

But, yeah, Instagram and TikTok are our biggest avenue and we. We try to post once or twice a day.

Awesome. Speaking. Speaking about relationships. When.

I don't know if you ever shared the story with you, but a buddy of mine from high school up in Michigan, where I grew up, he. I played basketball with him. He was on the golf team.

I didn't know he was that good of a golfer in high school, but ended up messing around on the mini tours for a little while and. And tried to. Tried to make it in the big show, but he's got a son who's really good. Bentley. Shout out to Bentley.

Bentley Kuhn, who won the Masters tournament Drive Chip and Putt a couple years ago.

Oh, no way.

He reaches out to me one day and he's like, hey, I've been following this guy on Instagram to shape performance golf. It says he's in Fort Wayne. Do you know this guy?

No way.

Heck, yeah, I do. I was like, you need to come down here and get Bentley fit. So, Brian, there you go. Little shout out for Eric. Bring Bentley down and get him fit.

But that's really neat.

We believe relationships win in the game of life. Relationships win. And we believe that, you know, all good things that I have personally are because of relationship.

You know, it's because I have a relationship who. I try to add value to people's lives. People add value to my life, and my life is richly blessed because of that.

But, you know, Eric, to close the show here on Student of the Game, my kids always say, like, give that man his flowers or give them their flowers, which is just the appreciation and the accolades. Who's somebody you want to get to send some virtual flowers to here on the show?

A person maybe in your life, whether it's family or business, that has helped you get to where you are today.

Can I do two?

Absolutely. Bring as many flowers you want.

All right. So on a personal level, it's unquestionably my wife, Lauren. I mean, I wouldn't be here.

The store would have closed years ago if she wasn't supporting me, not only financially, but emotionally. Encouragement. When I came home and talked about I can't do this. This. This is, you know, the negative things that are coming out in your head.

Her, her belief in me and believing that I could make this thing work. I just, yeah, there's zero percent chance I would have made it without her.

On a business aspect, there's another person that Tom Kelly, when he came into to my life 12 years ago, he was just. I just fit him and he would buy clubs for me, send all of his friends in. But then seven years ago, he decided to invest into my company.

He, I mean, completely flipped it, was able to renovate it and just completely changed my life. I truly believe I would have went out of business if it wasn't for that man. And he did it with no intention of making any money.

He just did it because he wanted to. He loves the game of golf, he loves small business, and he's asked me for nothing. I never even asked him to do this.

I don't know why he did it, but my God, I love that man and I really appreciate everything that he's done for me and my family. And I can never ever thank him enough. But then, I mean, you and Jay and Ray, we won't go into details about that. But you know what I'm talking about.

You brought me Becky, you brought me the stability. You brought me the mindset of how to run a business and what to care about and all that. So that will never be lost on me.

I can't say thank you enough to that as well.

I appreciate that. Well, I will give Lauren her flowers as well.

One of the real estate transactions we did together, I think she was signing papers in the delivery room and when the twins were born. So you guys are just a power couple. Power team.

And that's just a shout out and a testament to, you know, one of the most successful things a small business needs is a supportive spouse. Like that's one of the numbers.

And remember, it was twins too. Not just. Not just.

Yeah, it was. It was twins. It was double trouble. And. And Grace Touche is up and coming basketball player at Homestead High School. So we're going to watch it.

We're going to watch out for her. But Eric, I can't thank you enough for being on the show. Go follow Touche performance golf.

And for all your golfing needs, if you just want to have less bad shots, if you want to be a little better golfer, if you want to out drive your buddy, then, then go support this great, I would say local business. But now you're a global business. You got people from all over following you. So congratulations, Eric.

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on, Brad.

All right, that's a wrap. Go ahead and screenshot this. Send it to a friend. If. If you know somebody who golfs, make sure that they know the name Eric Touche.

If they don't golf, but they're a small business owner, make sure you listen to this because, sure, you can hear a lot of your story in this episode. That's a wrap. Have a great one, everyone. Thanks for listening to Student of the Game podcast. Whatever game you are playing, I'm cheering for you.

See you in the next class.