How Linda Cozzi Grew Philadelphia Cricket Club from $11M to $38M Through Employee Investment

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Linda Cozy, chief financial officer of the Philadelphia cricket club. They have been recognized among the top clubs in America since 1854, offering multiple sports facilities, six dining venues and premier event hosting.

Their mission is to engage and enrich their community through creating fun and active social experiences that athletes of all levels can enjoy, from beginners to world champs. Linda has over 30 years of experience in finance and operations across hospitality and sports. She has overseen a triple top line revenue growth, transformational capital projects, and has achieved record high employee satisfaction.

Under her leadership, the club has also gained recognition as a top 50 platinum club of America and top 150 platinum country club in the world. Linda has held leadership roles on the board of the Philadelphia and vicinity club management association and serves as president of the Philadelphia club foundation, demonstrating her dedication to advancing the industry. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

Linda Cozzi (01:13)
you

Anthony Codispoti (01:25)
Today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team of country club employees and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money in your employees’ pockets and the companies too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900.

her employee per year. Now results vary for each company. Some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, CFO of the Philadelphia Cricket Club, Linda Cozy. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Linda Cozzi (02:14)
Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Anthony Codispoti (02:17)
So, Lydia, you first went to school for finance and accounting. What first sparked your interest in that?

Linda Cozzi (02:24)
You know, it’s funny, it kind of came by happenstance. I was a senior in high school and needed an elective to finish out the year. And I took a bookkeeping class just on a whim and it just clicked with me. I didn’t know one in my family was an accountant. My dad was a high school math teacher and football coach. And I thought, wow, this could be a ⁓ potential.

So I went through the accounting route and it’s worked out for me.

Anthony Codispoti (02:55)
it’s fit pretty well. And you’ve worked at a number of places since graduating that put a high degree of focus on hospitality. Hotels, country clubs, golf courses. What first got you interested in these types of industries?

Linda Cozzi (03:13)
⁓ you know, I think it’s again, just a kind of natural progression. I was working in a hotel while I was going to college. I was working in the bar and when I graduated, they offered me a management and training program, in their accounting department. And it just kind of went from there. I’m from the South and I think the South is kind of synonymous with hospitality. So it just seemed like a good fit for me. and throughout my career, it’s I’ve just gravitated towards that.

Anthony Codispoti (03:43)
Before we talk about Philadelphia Cricket Club, pick one of your career stops along the way that was particularly formidable for you and explain big powerful lesson that you learned there.

Linda Cozzi (03:58)
You know, I was very fortunate in that first job right out of college. ⁓ I was so excited and I was charged with auditing food and beverage internal controls. I was so excited. I went and found every mistake I could find. Right. And I thought I was, I was like so pumped. I was doing my job, you know, cause I found all of this stuff and my controller came to me and he said, Linda, know, you’ll attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.

And that just flipped the switch for me ⁓ and really changed the trajectory of my career after that. Instead of being an auditor, I became a business partner. So I worked so closely with operations. I even had one team who won food and beverage operation of the year. And it got to the point where they didn’t hate seeing me. They were like, come in Linda. Let me show you what we’re doing. ⁓ So that just business partner.

role that I took as opposed to an auditor changed the rest of my career. got to a point where I started understanding operations, understanding what they went through. And that really helped me become more of a storyteller than a bean counter, as I’ll say.

Anthony Codispoti (05:18)
And so what did that look like from a practical standpoint? Were you no longer looking for all the little tiny mistakes or were you still looking for them, but then maybe being more contributory to the solution.

Linda Cozzi (05:33)
Exactly. would teach them what I’m looking for so that they knew how to. So in food and beverage, you’re like labeling items, rotating them so you’re using the oldest one first, that kind of stuff. So I would go and teach them what it is that I’m looking for so that then all I was reporting is how great they were doing. So it just became a great relationship. And then, you know, again, it was I viewed my role as

not an auditor, but as a support function. How can I make your operation better in the job that I provide? ⁓ So it just, it really, just changed that whole relationship to a business partner is what I’ll call it.

Anthony Codispoti (06:16)
And you said something about becoming a storyteller. Do you mean that in the sense of being able to tell a story to your team members about why things are done a certain way or was there a different context there?

Linda Cozzi (06:28)
No, different context. So because I knew so much about what was going on in the operation, I could take the numbers and then tell the story of the operation based on the variances or whatever was happening. ⁓ That’s what I mean by storyteller is that I could tell the story behind the numbers, not just report the numbers.

Anthony Codispoti (06:50)
Can you think of a specific example?

Linda Cozzi (06:54)
so like if early in my career in hotels, if you had, if you were beating revenue targets, but you weren’t bringing a certain percentage down to the bottom line, telling those types of stories as to why or why not that might be happening. there was one particular time in, ⁓ my manufacturing career where I was at Sara Lee coffee.

Um, I built such great relationships that if a batch of coffee was burnt and then reused into like a lower product, um, they were coming to me and telling me. So when I had variances in inventory, I was able to tell leaders this happened, but we were able to recover parts of it by, you know, reintroducing it into a, uh, a higher, uh, you know, a different product. Um, but we still have this small variance. So.

explaining to leaders why the numbers were the way they were so that they could make better decisions and not necessarily worry about it being a particular problem, if that makes sense.

Anthony Codispoti (08:03)
That helps a lot, yeah, thanks. Okay, so then how did the opportunity to join Philadelphia Cricket Club come

Linda Cozzi (08:11)
So I was doing some consulting, some interim CFO work and installing systems, which was kind of my specialty. ⁓ And they were looking for a CFO at Cricket. I was in Atlanta at the time. I didn’t know if it was the right fit. So I just reached out to the GM at the time and I said, you know, I don’t know if this is the right fit, but I can at least come and be your interim CFO. can install the system. I’ve done it before.

I can get you through it and if it works out great and if it doesn’t, then I will help transition to your new person. ⁓ Well, it worked out for me. It gave me the consulting ⁓ work that I needed. This was during, you know, the still recovering from the financial crisis of 08, 09. was 2011. And ⁓ I came, at the time, the revenue here was still pretty low. So they weren’t…

Anthony Codispoti (08:47)
Quite an offer.

Linda Cozzi (09:09)
willing to quite pay what it would cost for me to move my family up here. So I transitioned with the new person. Unfortunately, that person was not equipped for the volume that happens here. So I kept coming back during the year and ⁓ at the same time, looking for a permanent job because the consulting work was so sporadic. And I was using the GM as a reference and he’s like, no, you need to come work for me. And I’m like, well, I told you what it would take. And he’s like,

Anthony Codispoti (09:30)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Cozzi (09:39)
Okay, get up here. And that was in 2012. Yeah. And I’ve been here ever since.

Anthony Codispoti (09:41)
Okay, you at that point, you had proved yourself like you’re super valuable, we need you we’re going to bump up the compensation.

Okay, and so tell us about, actually paint a picture for us what it was like when you first came in. What were some of the problems that needed to be fixed or addressed?

Linda Cozzi (10:00)
⁓ it took me a good year ⁓ to clean up the books. My predecessor here, unfortunately, there could be board meetings where they didn’t get financials. ⁓ So the bar was pretty low. And the praise that I got at the end of that year, I was like,

Anthony Codispoti (10:19)
Hahaha

Linda Cozzi (10:26)
was give you financials. It’s not that hard, but I did have a lot of cleanup to do. It took me a good year to get it to where I was comfortable with it, which means that everything ties out. pretty detail oriented. And ⁓ so it was a lot of work that first year, but then after that, you know, I’ve just kept it going. But ⁓ yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (10:48)
So aside

from having to clean up the books, what were some other issues that needed addressed? And maybe those had to wait until after the books were cleaned up.

Linda Cozzi (10:54)
Well, we will.

No, because simultaneously we were doing ⁓ a $17 million project ⁓ on two campuses. ⁓ So we also had a huge capital project that was going on. So yeah, it was a little more than just cleaning up the accounting. was keeping things going, being able to provide solid financials that leaders can make decisions on, whether it’s, okay, can we borrow money now? What does the future look like?

you know, that forecasting, kind of stuff. So it was a lot at once. But I love challenges like that. I know that sounds disturbing, but I do. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (11:44)
So you mentioned multiple campuses. Let’s take a step back for a second and paint a more complete picture for us of the Philadelphia Cricket Club. What goes on there? What happens at the different campuses? Membership? Give us the whole lay down.

Linda Cozzi (11:59)
Sure.

So we’re a private country club, full service country club. So that means that our members own us. We’re not an equity club. You can’t sell your membership to someone else. We don’t have houses around our property. So we’re truly a neighborhood club. have two locations. They’re about five miles apart with three club houses. So we have one location. We call it St. Martin’s.

⁓ in a suburb of Philadelphia called Chestnut Hill. The area itself is called St. Martin’s, which is why we call this campus St. Martin’s. That has all of our racket sports. It has the pool, it has the banquet facilities and a nine hole golf course. And then five miles away, we have two 18 hole golf courses where we also do trap shooting there as well. ⁓ And we have two club houses that have food and beverage.

So it’s a pretty big operation. For a private club, we’re considered a large club, mainly because of the two campuses and because of the size of our membership. We’re up to about 1,900 memberships right now, which means with kids and spouses, it’s about 4,800 members. Our top line revenue is about 36 million. Actually, we might be about 38 million this year.

And when I started, we were about 11 million. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (13:30)
my gosh. Okay. So there’s a big story there. How did

you increase revenue so much?

Linda Cozzi (13:36)
By increasing membership, our membership in when I started was right around 1,150 and now we’re gonna be a little over 1,900 memberships now. The structure was different too. Country clubs have a tendency, especially, and we’re the oldest country club in America. We were established in 1854 by some cricket players and

You would, you can imagine being the oldest country club. Sometimes you continue to do things the way you’ve always done them. Um, thankfully this club doesn’t think that way, but, um, for a very long time, uh, up until, you know, some new management came in 2011, they had what you called a kind of a la carte service where you paid, you were either individual or family, and then you picked what sports you wanted.

And you could change them every quarter. Can you imagine trying to forecast the dues on that? It’s crazy. So they had the vision to change that to an all-inclusive membership, which is now pretty much what you see everywhere, ⁓ where you have everything, both campuses, all golf, all facilities, or you just have the St. Martin’s campus, which is the racket sports and the pool. ⁓ It does include the nine-hole golf course, or you just have a social membership.

Anthony Codispoti (14:41)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Cozzi (15:06)
what we call a house. ⁓ But switching to that, yeah, it really increased the revenue immediately because you have now everyone supporting all of the facilities as opposed to, I only want pool.

Anthony Codispoti (15:09)
So you change the membership structure.

Yeah. And then you increased membership from 1100 memberships to 1900. How did you go about doing that?

Linda Cozzi (15:31)
Just I think the capital projects helped a lot because we were growing by about 100 memberships a year for a couple of years in a row after those projects. We also did some, you know, reduce our initiation fee, made the barrier to entry a little bit easier too. We’ve since gone away from that, but it was really helpful in the beginning. And then we’ve continued to do projects.

In 23, we finished another $17 million worth of projects. ⁓ And we’re currently underway doing some additional projects with adding a golf performance center and renovating another clubhouse. ⁓ you know, we’re constantly innovating, constantly reinventing into the facilities. We are the first in the area to add Padel, which is a racket sport out of

Originally started in Mexico, but it’s really grown traction in Spain and it is now growing into the US. We were one of the first country clubs in the area to have that. ⁓ So just constantly looking at ways to enhance the member experience. ⁓ And then I know we’ll get into this at some point, but just investing in our staff because our staff create the experience. And when you have such a

positive experience your members want to invite their friends to join, ⁓ which all members are referrals anyway. ⁓ So it’s just kind of been this organic growth through a series of really good decisions.

Anthony Codispoti (17:15)
So I want to dig into a few things that you said there. First of all, Padel, my first time hearing about it, I just looked up some images. ⁓ Yep, racket sport, a low net. ⁓ Looks like it’s in ⁓ a cage or like a room. Like is it sort of like racquetball where you bounce the balls off the walls?

Linda Cozzi (17:30)
Yes.

So it’s a mix between squash and tennis. So it’s scored like tennis. It’s a heavy tennis ball that’s used, but the racket is not a string racket. It’s a solid like styrofoam type racket. ⁓ You can play off the walls. It’s got glass on either side. Ours are outdoors. ⁓ You might be looking at something that’s inside. I’m not sure. ⁓ But it’s got

Anthony Codispoti (17:38)
Okay.

Linda Cozzi (18:01)
fencing on the sides, glass on the either end, and you can play off of all of that. And you can even play outside the court if you can get it and get it back into play. But it’s a really fun sport because it’s done. The base of it is turf with sand underneath it. So for people who were really competitive in squash and the hard court is just too hard on the joints anymore, it’s a sport that’s, you know, a little more forgiving.

Anthony Codispoti (18:26)
Mm-hmm.

Linda Cozzi (18:30)
but yet you can still have that competitive edge that you love about squash.

Anthony Codispoti (18:36)
It’s good for aging folks like myself.

Linda Cozzi (18:38)
It is, but you know what? All ages. We had our first junior championship this past summer, so it’s it’s all aged. A lot of fun. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (18:44)
good for all ages.

And then a couple of other things you said a little bit earlier. ⁓ There’s no houses around your properties. Why did you make the point of pointing that?

Linda Cozzi (18:58)
Because some places like in Florida in particular, a neighborhood will be built around with the country club as an amenity and you have to own a house to be a member there. Here there are houses around us, but the club doesn’t own any of those. And those members may be, I mean, the people who own those houses may be members here, but they don’t have to have a membership to buy the house, if that makes sense.

Anthony Codispoti (19:26)
Gotcha. Okay. ⁓

There was something else that you said it’s going to come back to me.

The Okay, yeah. And then that sort of leads into the whole membership structure, right? You’re it. It’s not the people who live around or own homes because that’s not part of your ⁓ part of the Philadelphia cricket club. It’s people who have elected to pay the initiation pay the annual dues. Okay. Understood. Okay. ⁓ Okay, say, explain to us what the top 50 platinum club is, Linda.

Linda Cozzi (19:40)
You

So the ranking organization in our industry, and it’s you apply and then all GMs and presidents of other clubs vote on the top clubs. And they do it every two years. They also own the platinum clubs of the world. When we started, when I started in 2012, we weren’t in the top 100.

⁓ we didn’t have, it’s not that we had a bad reputation, but we didn’t have a great one. It’s like people just didn’t really know about us, even though we’re the oldest country club in America. ⁓ and since then we, think our last ranking was number 36, which is pretty impressive over, you know, a 13 year time frame. ⁓ we’ve really grown in the industry. We’ve hosted some events that have highlighted us as, ⁓ a place to be.

most recently the the truest PGA championship. ⁓ And so our reputation has grown and then Platinum Clubs of the world, we were always an honorary mention. And these last two times we jumped in and at 120, the score, the rankings are going again right now. It’s every other year also. So I’m hoping that we.

jump up a little bit more on I’m a little competitive if you can tell.

Anthony Codispoti (21:34)
And what are they looking at? Is this sort of like quality of the facility? Is it revenue numbers? Like what’s important to them?

Linda Cozzi (21:37)
and

It’s quality of facilities, it’s staff, it’s members. They have a whole list of criteria. don’t remember. ⁓ Reputation of the members, how they give back to the community, how we give back to the game of golf, to some of the racket sports. We host a lot of other tournaments too, like the Chestnut Hill Classic is a squash.

Anthony Codispoti (21:49)
Like who your members are or like number of members.

Hmm.

Linda Cozzi (22:10)
women’s squash tournament. ⁓ We’ve got a, my gosh, I’m gonna miss what ranking she is. We have a member who’s like highly ranked in the squash professional world, which is so fun to watch her play. We recently hosted the APTA Nationals, which is ⁓ the platform tennis organization. ⁓ We have seven courts for that as well. So. ⁓

You know, we give back to all of the sports that, you know, we host here.

Anthony Codispoti (22:42)
When you say you give

back to, mean like hosting these tournaments, these events.

Linda Cozzi (22:45)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (22:48)
⁓ And you mentioned, you know, the big investments that you guys have made, a number of capital projects over the years as a big reason for the increase in memberships, the increase in revenue, obviously the restructuring of how the memberships work. Anything else that you give credit to for that increase in revenue?

Linda Cozzi (23:10)
Yeah, it give a lot of credit to our staff because no matter how good our facilities are, it’s our staff that create the experience. And I think our team is, I’m sure everybody does, but I think our team is amazing. ⁓ To watch them work together. It’s so this past March we had the APTA national tournament.

national championship and I’m standing in the middle is freezing. It’s a winter sport standing in the middle of the parking lot our village that we created for the fan experience and I’m just watching our team and it’s like watching a ballet. They’re so well coordinated. They pay attention to every single little detail and the reviews that we got from hosting that tournament from both fans and players.

They’re like, this is the best tournament we’ve ever had. Everything was taken care of. The food and beverage was amazing. The staff was so accommodating. Everything they needed, they were right on top of it. They do that stuff every day for our members. Day in and day out, they’re just amazing and they care so much that the experience that the members have when they come here, it feels like home. And because of that,

I think our membership has grown. When we took over in 2018, the three of us, they call us the three headed monster. So Jim Smith Jr. is the director of golf and he’s the Flower Town general manager. And then Dan Mearsman is our director of grounds and he is our chief planning officer. So he’s kind of the project manager for a lot of our

Anthony Codispoti (24:47)
Who were the other two?

Linda Cozzi (25:06)
capital projects. So the three of us together are the most tenured. I’m the least tenured of the three and I’ve been here for 13 years, if that gives you a picture. But one of the things that we felt was most important is kind of that Richard Branson invest in your employees and they’ll take care of your customers. We fully believed in that and

They just started immediately. look every year, we’re like, how can we improve our benefits? Are we paying the right rates? Are we at or better than market? ⁓ Let’s build this enrichment fund so that we can thank our staff on the fly when we need to, when they go above and beyond. ⁓ We take that enrichment.

enrichment budget and allocate it out to each department based on the number of employees that they have. And every year we’re like, have you spent your money? Have you spent your money? Make sure you’re taking care of your employees.

Anthony Codispoti (26:09)
What does that mean? How would they spend the money? What’s the enrichment fund used for?

Linda Cozzi (26:12)
They could use it for say, hey, take your wife out to dinner. Here’s a gift card to this local restaurant. It could be a cash. could be here’s $50 in cash. Thank you so much for going above and beyond. It could just be, you know, a Starbucks gift card. You’ve really been killing it lately. Thank you. Any way that they can think of to personalize a thank you.

And it can’t just be, you know, okay, everybody gets a hundred dollars. It’s, it’s not that it’s, it’s very personal per person. We do things like celebrate milestones, whether it’s holding a baby shower for someone who’s about to have a baby, um, giving, um, wedding gifts for those who are about to get married. Um, you know, just anything that we can do.

to kind of personalize and help people grow. that’s where we focus and it’s, it’s built a culture. We survey our, employees, ⁓ twice a year and we use the net promoter score. I’m sure you’re familiar with that. Okay. ⁓ so now promoter score is on a scale of one to 10, how likely are you to recommend PCC as a place to work?

Anthony Codispoti (27:31)
Yeah, but go ahead and explain it, please.

Linda Cozzi (27:40)
and so nines and tens are your promoters, ⁓ sevens and eights are just kind of a moderate number and then six and below your detractors. So you take all the nines and tens, the percentage of those minus the percentage of the six and unders, and that’s your net promoter score. Anything above a zero is okay. Up to 30 is kind of good. ⁓

And then, you know, it continues to go up from there. When we started in 2018, that score was an eight, which is, yeah, not great. ⁓ This past year, I think we had a score of 68. ⁓ And it really has been a series of different things of how can we make work life better? How can, so we’ve done things like,

Our managers, especially in food and beverage and grounds and some of these other areas, work so many hours. The country club industry is known for being a grind from a management standpoint. I mean, you could easily work six, seven days a week, 16 hours a day. I mean, it can really be a grind. ⁓ We recognize that and said, no, we’re going to go to four day work weeks.

Anthony Codispoti (28:54)
Okay.

Linda Cozzi (29:08)
So we need to expand our management team to make sure that we have the coverage. And we did it. ⁓ Now, some of them still work five, but we make sure that they’re not working more than 45, 50 hours a week, tops, which is unheard of in our industry. ⁓ We do things like this year, for instance, we have five paid holidays. It’s kind of annoying.

So we ran the numbers and said, okay, can we add another holiday? Well, we’re adding another holiday. ⁓ Memorial Day. Can you believe we don’t pay for Memorial Day? That drives me crazy. So we’re going to now.

Anthony Codispoti (29:45)
What’s the new holiday?

Is the club closed on Memorial Day? Okay. So how is it a holiday for the employees?

Linda Cozzi (29:55)
No. No. We’re not.

because they get paid the extra time for it. So our part-time people get paid time and a half for working the holiday and our full-time people get another eight hours. ⁓ And then our salaried people would essentially get another day off at a different time. So.

Anthony Codispoti (30:20)
So sorry, Linda,

just thinking through this, do you think that spending more on the employees, it’s a causation or is it a correlation? It just happens to coincide with the revenues increasing because you guys are doing all these big capital projects to draw new members. You change that membership fee structure. How convinced are you that

the extra money that you’re spending on your team is contributing to the revenue.

Linda Cozzi (30:56)
pretty convinced. We’ve been doing it for a long time, reinvesting in our staff, creating a better work-life balance. It’s reduced our turnover. In hospitality turnover, especially in food and beverage can be 100, 120%. Our full-time staff is, our turnover is about 25%. So I, knowing our members,

⁓ again creates that sense of home for them. This is like a second home to them. So when they’re recognized, when they come in, when they know what drink they like and can, you know, it just, makes them feel special. And that type of feeling and experience, I believe has helped grow our membership. Yes, the facilities are nice. Yes, those are important too.

But I think the experience that they have when they’re here that they receive from our staff has really helped grow the membership. I really do.

Anthony Codispoti (32:01)
That’s powerful. Yeah. And I mean, the other point of evidence is the increase in the employee net promoter promoter score, right? ⁓ people are happier working there and it makes me think, is there a work equivalent of happy wife, happy life? You’re familiar with that, right? And I’ve got a wonderful wife and you know, ⁓ she would probably turn it around on me and you know, whatever the happy husband, happy life thing is, but, what’s the work, ⁓ version of that? Is there one?

Linda Cozzi (32:18)
What?

Yeah, happy employees, customers, happy staff, happy customers, in our case, members. And Richard Branson, I have to credit him with that. He posts that everywhere, but it’s true. ⁓ You know, we spend a lot of money on training, on making people happy, ⁓ on helping them achieve their dreams, even if it means that they’re outside of here. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (32:32)
Like happy staff, happy say it again.

we go.

Linda Cozzi (33:00)
You know, that’s one benefit about working in a club is that you have such a wide network that if there’s someone like who is going to school or pursuing a career that might be outside of here, how can we help them get there? And we do that all the time, all the time. So I had a particular girl who was working for me in member billing. So smart, so smart. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (33:14)
⁓

What does that look like?

Linda Cozzi (33:27)
And she’s like, well, I’m thinking about going back to school. And I’m like, well, what is it that you want to do? And she’s, well, I’m thinking about risk management. I’m like, ⁓ I have to introduce you to our broker Johnson, Kendall Johnson. They’re an amazing company. I think you would love working there. That’ll get you to where you want to go. And she’s like, really? I introduced her. She’s working there now and she’s doing great. ⁓

You know, seeing people succeed, even if it means that they’re outside of here, is just such a great feeling for us. We’re absolutely going to do it because we want to help you achieve your dreams because then you’re going to say, oh my gosh, my experience at PCC was so great. Here’s what they did for me.

Anthony Codispoti (34:17)
You know, I was fortunate enough to have somebody kind of infused that lesson into me, I don’t know, 20, 25 years ago, you know, as I’ve owned different companies over the years and I invest in my team, I’m always worried about my team getting poached or leaving or, you know, I put a lot of time and energy into training them and, cultivating them and, you know, sending them to courses and education. And somebody sort of flipped the script for me and they’re like, no, that’s the time to celebrate. Like they’ve graduated.

Like you have helped them into the next phase of their life. And, you know, it shifted me from sort of this, I if you want to call it a fixed mindset into more of a growth mindset and like be happy for that person, celebrate for that person that this new opportunity, this new door has opened for them. And that was, that was for me was a big energy shift and being able to, you know, and today I’m still in touch with folks that worked for me, you know,

Linda Cozzi (34:58)
Yeah.

Alright.

Anthony Codispoti (35:16)
20 years ago. And it’s like, hey, what’s going on? And sometimes they reach out for a reference or some career advice. it’s just much better feeling that way. That’s what I’m hearing you say too.

Linda Cozzi (35:26)
Absolutely, completely agree. There’s nothing more rewarding for me than to see someone else reach their goals. Because I can’t always provide for them, right? I might not have a position that allows them to grow into it. ⁓ So if I can help them get to one, that’s just fantastic for me.

Anthony Codispoti (35:34)
Mm-mm.

You’ve been in the hospitality and sports space for decades now. Are there particular shifts or innovations that you’ve noticed ⁓ that, I don’t know, have kind of surprised you over time?

Linda Cozzi (36:04)
If there’s really anything that surprises me, technology is interesting for me, especially country clubs. They don’t like to spend money on technology. They’d rather spend money on the golf course. And I totally get that. But in today’s world, it’s almost expected that you would have great technology like their companies have. know, our members have

you know, they’re using Oracle or NetSuite or all of these really expensive types of software. And we don’t have that here ⁓ because we spend more money on the golf course than we do on technology. So the club is always behind from a technology standpoint. So trying to find innovation in a price point that adds value to our members is

is something that I’m constantly looking at. That’s probably the biggest area where I constantly get surprised of, well, why can’t you just do this? Well, I understand it seems simple, but our system doesn’t work that way. And trying to provide that service of, we call it reducing friction. ⁓

where is their friction and how can we make that easier, whether it’s for the employee, for each other, for the members, whatever it may be. ⁓ So constantly trying to stay up and AI is really interesting for me. ⁓ So I’m trying to just learn as much as I can right now to see how that might eventually apply to us. ⁓ So I think that’s gonna probably be a big shift.

are doing, not necessarily from an AI standpoint, but I mean, kind of. ⁓ Our ground superintendent, Dan Mearsman, I mentioned him before, we’re one of the first clubs to bring in autonomous mowers. Yeah. So, and we constantly are, each year we’re increasing our fleet a little bit more. And it doesn’t necessarily decrease our staff, but what it does is it allows them

Anthony Codispoti (38:08)
Wow.

Linda Cozzi (38:23)
to shift to things that are more detail oriented, like cutting around some of the sand traps that require much more detail and a human touch to do, the autonomous mowers will take care of the big spaces that you don’t have to have. And they’re quiet, they’re interesting.

Anthony Codispoti (38:42)
the fairways.

But the humans are still doing the greens and yeah, the rough and okay.

Linda Cozzi (38:47)
Yeah, all

of the detail kind of work that a machine can do. ⁓ So it’s interesting to see how to start incorporating some of those things. ⁓ know, there’s some innovation like that coming out in kitchens. We don’t have any of it yet, ⁓ but we’re keeping an eye on, you know, kind of what’s available and what we can use. ⁓ There’s no doubt that

the labor market is tough, especially after COVID. A lot of people left the hospitality industry. And so we have to think of ways that other than just pay to attract good talent. ⁓ So yeah, that’s probably gonna be the biggest shift in our industry in the next several years.

Anthony Codispoti (39:41)
You said that AI is really interesting to you at this point. Are you finding ways to leverage it in your work yet?

Linda Cozzi (39:44)
for

Not yet. We installed a new phone system ⁓ that was supposed to have an AI agent. It didn’t work the way I wanted it to, and it really frustrated our members, so I turned it off. ⁓ I’m hoping that technology will get a little bit better. ⁓ And I’m still learning how it can apply to what we do.

So I’m just not quite sure yet. I’m still learning in that area.

Anthony Codispoti (40:23)
What is the future of the Philadelphia Cricket Club look like? What are you excited about that’s on the horizon? New projects, new member drives, new sports, I don’t know.

Linda Cozzi (40:32)
Thank

Yeah. So, ⁓ we are in the process of building a golf performance center and updating our range, which is super exciting. We’re also going to be, ⁓ renovating our clubhouse at the Wiss Hicken golf course, which is like an old farmhouse. ⁓ it’s incredibly inefficient. and I think after this renovation at all, the flow will be much better.

So I’m really excited about that. ⁓ I think that’s really gonna drive the membership. We have a strong demand for golf membership. ⁓ And I think that’s only gonna enhance the experience by adding those things.

Anthony Codispoti (41:19)
Now, let’s shift gears for a moment, Linda. I’d like to dive into a big challenge that you’ve overcome in your life, whether it’s on the personal side of things, professional side. How’d you get through that? What did you learn in the process?

Linda Cozzi (41:36)
Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges I had was prior to taking the job here, I was going through some personal things, a divorce, namely, and was in a job where I missed posting a payroll.

I’ve never made a mistake like that before. And normally I don’t allow my personal life to get in the interviewer with my professional life. ⁓ So that was hard. It was really hard. ⁓ And they ended up letting me go, ⁓ which I didn’t feel was fair because my audit was perfect.

And I caught it before then. mean, I caught it within a month of not doing it, you know? ⁓ But at the same time, I learned something didn’t look right and I knew it didn’t look right. And I need to trust my gut more when I notice something that is off because I’m so detail oriented. Like, I don’t miss stuff like that. And

So trusting my gut more, I’m like, no, dig back into that. That doesn’t look right. Even with my team now, I’m like, that doesn’t look right. Let’s dig back in. And most times they will find something that, yep, this isn’t an offer. This is, you know, that sort of thing. ⁓ So just, that was really hard for me. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (43:20)
I can imagine. mean, you’re going through a brutally rough, you know, personal experience, you know, already figuring out how to get up from that and dust yourself off. And now, you know, the one part of your life where maybe you were finding some solace, like where you felt like you were still in control, you still kind of had your hands on the reins because of every this tornado going on over here, you missed something. And so now you’re really beating yourself up on top of already feeling bad.

Linda Cozzi (43:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it was rough. ⁓ But you know, I made it through. ⁓ I became better for it. I certainly didn’t make that mistake again. I don’t think I’ve ever made the same mistake twice, but I definitely didn’t make that one again. And I ended up in a really good place and I’ve been here longer than I’ve ever been anywhere, which is 13 years and it’s been really successful for me.

Anthony Codispoti (44:18)
When you were going through kind of the worst of that, right? The divorce, know, kind of missing that thing at work and then being let go ultimately, where did you go for support? Who was there for you?

Linda Cozzi (44:31)
⁓ actually, God. ⁓

You know, I realized I was out of control and I was trying to control everything. And I said, what am I doing?

I’m like, you know what? God takes this for me. And. It’s like. The light went off. And then all of a sudden. Everything started to like just fall into place the way it was supposed to. And when you step back and look at. ⁓

how all of that happened, I know 100 % that that was God guiding me. 100%. And I’ve just, I’ve learned to, well, first of all, I start my day with God every day without fail. No matter what I do, first thing I do is the daily readings from Catholics. So I get them emailed every morning. It’s really easy.

And it helps me recognize those God moments and they happen all the time, all the time. And it certainly happened in my life. ⁓ The timing of getting the job here, my now husband got a job with a member the same day. I mean, everything just like fell into place and I’m like, okay, this is where we’re supposed to go. ⁓

So yeah, that’s really what got me through it.

Anthony Codispoti (46:25)
If I’m hearing you, it sounds like you almost needed to hit sort of this bottom point of frustration. like you use the words out of control and you’re trying to control all of these things that you couldn’t. And finally you let go, you let go, you gave it to a higher power. I can’t do this. And that’s when things started to click for you. Is that, is that what I’m hearing? Yeah.

Linda Cozzi (46:35)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, that’s

exactly what you’re hearing. Yes. Yeah. It’s really beautiful if you look back at it.

Anthony Codispoti (46:57)
Hmm. You know, and I think this is so hard for people to do, especially when you’re going through the hard thing in the moment, right? It’s like, you know, even if you have some perspective and awareness, it’s like, okay, you can step back and ask yourself the question, what am I meant to learn from this? Right? Because that’s what I do when I’m going through something hard. It’s like, okay, where’s the lesson in this? How can I come out of this struggle as a better person? It’s really hard to have that perspective in the moment.

Linda Cozzi (47:04)
Yeah.

for.

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (47:27)
But so many times as I look in the rear view mirror, what I went through, it’s like, man, in a weird way, I’ve got a sense of gratitude for that because I’ve got a new perspective. It steered me in a different direction. It caused me to meet this person. Something happened that really changed the trajectory of my life in a positive way.

Linda Cozzi (47:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think having that kind of rock bottom, if I will call it that ⁓ moment.

changed my perspective going forward. So now when I see challenges, it’s a little bit easier for me to step back and say, okay, let’s think about this for a minute. Is there an opportunity here where I have a tendency to, my husband gets upset with me a little, a little bit because sometimes I’m too positive. Like I can always see a good in something, whether it be a person or a situation or whatever.

And I think that moment where I decided to just turn things over gave me that freedom to say, okay, well, let’s look at this for a minute. I’m sure there’s some good we can get out of this. And there always is if you look at it from that perspective, but you have to train yourself to do that and you have to say, yeah, there’s a higher power at work and I know we can find an opportunity in this.

So it’s,

Anthony Codispoti (49:05)
That’s beautiful.

I appreciate you sharing all that. you know, another question I really like to ask is sort of the daily routines, the habits, like, and you said one of them, you’re Catholic, you do the readings every day to start your day. Are there anything else that sort of in your routine that kind of helps keep you on track, keep you centered?

Linda Cozzi (49:28)
I think that’s the biggest one because it really starts my day ⁓ centered with God, but then also starting it with gratitude. So it starts me looking at things in a positive way. ⁓ Other things are just, ⁓ other personal things are, exercise, healthy eating, ⁓ just trying to take good care of myself.

⁓ so that I can be of service to others.

Anthony Codispoti (50:02)
I love that. Linda, what would you characterize as your superpower?

Linda Cozzi (50:03)
Thank you.

understanding. I seek to understand before being understood. And what I mean by that is if I need something accomplished and I’m presenting this idea to whomever it may be, I want to know how that’s going to affect them from an operational standpoint. How much, you know,

Are you able to execute it at the highest level that you can? And if not, why? So I want to understand before just being understood, if that makes sense. I don’t like to just bark orders out to people without understanding how it impacts them from an operational standpoint, because I always want my team to be able to operate at the highest level that they can. And if I’m asking them to do something that won’t

let them do that, I want to know why. ⁓ Because that may change my perspective.

Anthony Codispoti (51:11)
How do you

personally approach personal development on a day-to-day or annual basis? Do you start out New Year’s thinking, OK, I want to learn about AI or whatever it is? Or is this more of a day-to-day approach? How do you think of

Linda Cozzi (51:33)
it’s a little of both. I, I’m the type of person who does not like to be stagnant. I cannot do the same thing day in and day out, which is probably why I enjoy my job so much. Cause it’s not the same every day. but when I feel like I have education dollars that I’m allowed to use and I have a certification, so I need some, you know, industry education to keep that certification. Cause I need those education hours.

But like last year, I was like, you know what? I need a different challenge. So instead of going to conference, I decided to take a class from Morton Business School called Women on Boards. It was a week long class, 40-ish women from all over the world, different industries. It was so energizing. ⁓

learning from them probably even more so than the class not to knock work in classes because it was great. ⁓ But just hearing the challenges of other women, hearing their experiences in their industry or in their countries ⁓ was just amazing and it was so energizing and I just love stuff like that. I love putting myself in situations that make me uncomfortable.

because the growth happens when you’re uncomfortable. It doesn’t happen when you’re comfortable. ⁓ And so I’m a constant learner. ⁓ I learn about nutrition, about health, about exercise. My husband’s a CrossFit athlete, so I’m constantly looking at, you know, recovery, because we’re older. So I’m looking at recovery, I’m looking at nutrition. I’m going down this rabbit hole of…

learning about peptides. I mean, I’m like all over the place when it comes to things that I’m interested in and that keep me engaged. ⁓ But I will always be a lifelong learner. And so I like constantly challenging myself that way.

Anthony Codispoti (53:45)
Yeah. And you hit on something that I’m a big proponent of as well. And that’s the support of peer groups, right? Especially when you’re kind of at the top, like it can feel a little bit alone, a little bit isolating. And so when you have the opportunity, you know, in that course, a mastermind, a seminar, wherever it is, you can kind of get together with more of like your tribe, your kinds of people. You can share stories. You can support each other. I’ve been through that.

Linda Cozzi (53:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (54:12)
Here’s what I did. And then you’re in the room with really big thinkers. And you’re like, man, I thought I was a big thinker and I see what she’s working on. Man, I gotta up my game, right?

Linda Cozzi (54:16)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I love it. Yes, absolutely. I love being around people who are going to challenge me to be a better me. Regardless of what area it’s in. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (54:28)
Yeah.

Any podcasts or books that are favorites of yours that might want to recommend to our listeners?

Linda Cozzi (54:39)
So the best management book I’ve ever read is called The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. Several of us on the team read it we’re like, that’s it. That’s what we’re trying to create here. ⁓ It’s a story about helping employees reach their dreams. ⁓ And I, a couple, I guess it’s been two weeks now. I got a picture from my chef of an employee with keys to her house.

And he said, you helped this happen. And we played a very minor role. Don’t get me wrong. ⁓ She worked hard to get it. But to see that dream fulfilled and to get that text message, I was almost in tears. I mean, that’s what we’re here for. That’s the kind of thing that really makes me feel like we’re on the right direction. And that book,

kind of describes that. It’s like if we were going to write a book of what we’re trying to create, that’s it. But yeah, so that’s probably the best one I’ve read.

Anthony Codispoti (55:43)
I love that.

Linda, I’ve just got one more question for you today, but before I ask it, want to do a few housekeeping items here. Anybody who wants to get in touch with Linda Cozy, you can find her on LinkedIn. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes, but her last name is spelled C-O-Z-Z-I, Linda Cozy. You can find her on LinkedIn. And as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com.

Finally, if you would take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, you’ll hold a special place in our hearts forever. Now, Linda, last question for you. You and I reconnect a year from today, and you are celebrating something big, fist pumping in the air kind of celebrating. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from?

Linda Cozzi (56:40)
hope that our net promoter score for our employees is even higher than where it is now. I would love to see it around 75 to 80 is where I’d love to get it. I know, high dreams, but I would love to be celebrating that a year from now.

Anthony Codispoti (56:49)
Wow.

Linda Cozy from the Philadelphia Cricket Club. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Linda Cozzi (57:05)
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Anthony Codispoti (57:08)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.