Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Low cost way of adding a service

Sometimes we all have our hands too full to add another aspect to our business.  Thank goodness for outsourcing.  You might want to expand your business to include food, a proshop, or some other service, but don't have the capital, manpower, or know-how to pull it off.  One way of dealing with this would be to outsource.

Say you have the space available for another aspect of the business that you have not yet addressed.  You could think about monetizing this area by inviting in a third party vendor, someone who won't compete with your current operations.  A food service operation might be a good fit with your weekend crowd, and only come in to work parties and busy days.  You set up a contract with this service to either take a percentage, or charge a space fee.  With the space fee, you both understand what the bottom line is, while the percentage could be more lucrative but unknown.  You want to make sure that this vendor isn't funneling money away from other operations.  An ice cream vending machine operated by an outside vendor could take money away from your candy sales.  So make sure that you are offering relatively different products and you aren't adding competition to your own operations.

Similarly if you are not selling equipment, you could bring in a local shop to set up an operation in your park.  This could have good community relations, as well it could help promote your park outside.

Bringing in outside people to help put on events and other gatherings is another way to monetize non-productive times such as nights or certain days.  An event promoter who can add energy to your park and also some revenue is a win-win situation.

So if you need to try and expand, think about bringing in outside help if you can't manage it yourself.  You can start these off as initial events and move them on to more permanent situation if it works.