Setting your year's goals and benchmarks

Now that the new year has turned, and the holiday vacation rush has come to an end you should set goals and benchmarks for the year.  With another (or just one) year behind you, it is possible to now look at the year, it's ups and downs and take that information to make plans for this year.  Make sure that you make time for yourself to do this especially if you are manning some part of the park.  If there are slow days or closed days, use these times to gather your information together, look at your receipts, and plan your year accordingly.  Here are some of the typical things you should be looking at:

Busy Times versus Slow Times - more than anecdotal information, you want to really see where your slowdowns are and where you were busy.  What patterns arise?  If the start of September is slow,  figure out why.  If summer was slow here and there, try to look for other things going on like July 4th, or lots of people going on vacation at the start of August.  If things were busy, like June or 2 weeks in March, try to see why.  Then, when you have an understanding of the year, figure out what you can do to increase slow times and monetize busy times better.

Membership, Entrance Data and Promotions- Since you have data from your computer entrance program (hopefully), you can mine this data to help you either resell memberships, or get members to come back for a visit.  If you haven't been doing this, try to set it up so you can get this data.  You can get data on members and non-members if you have a check in your system for waivers.  If you don't have this set up, do so. It could be the way to get more money out of each and every visitor to your park.  What is a membership worth?  What if you tracked it versus a non-member?  Create a non-member card (make it cheap with either a number to be keyed in or a barcode to be scanned.  This way when they come in you can quickly check that the person has a waiver on file.  It will also allow you to track their visits and if you see they are coming often, or that they have a birthday, or that they haven't been back in months (through data analysis from your membership software) you can send a note to these people whether they are members or not.  A discount entrance ticket, a "come in raffle", a note on a pro demo or what not is good advertising and cost effective.  You can even track how often these promos work so that this time next year you can stop sending stuff to skaters who have moved on.  Using member data and tracking can help you better see how often members come in and how much they spend.  You can offer discounts with a membership that allows you to see how much and how effective these programs are.  So go to your data to figure out ways to get people back in, ways to upsell them more stuff, or and create promotions that work.

Review How Your Workers Work - If you hire staff, you need to ensure you are getting the most out of them as possible.  Perform a review of expectation and areas of needs for the park that might be addressed by your hired staff.  If you have someone who is really tech savvy then they could be tapped to update your Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and website.  If you have others who are sitting around reading Thrasher while on duty, maybe a cleaning or mending project could be completed.  Filing and data entry is always needed.

Review Areas of Park - Does no one ever go on one of the ramps?  Is it used enough to warrant the space used.  Space in the skatepark is like money.  If skaters aren't using it, it is wasting money.  It may be a great thing to have a 12' tall vert ramp, but if only 5 people use it a year, that space is losing money.  Survey skaters about their favorite parts of the park, study where they skate the most and see if you can't create more spaces that help sell entrances.  Similarly if you have shop that people don't use enough it might be time to pull the plug.  The costs of keeping it open should be paid for by sales, if not, it needs to go.  Skaters are loyal to their shops so if you aren't getting market share for your shop, either you need to change what you are doing there or get out of the business.  Review of areas where money goes can help you create a lean and profitable park.  You can't afford to have a shop or a ramp that doesn't support itself.  The things need to be an attraction that draws people to your park to spend money, that is why you are in "business".

Make New Things- What is going to be your fresh addition this year?  A new type of contest?  A new ramp? A new Free day?  A new connection with the community?  Figure out new things and see how they can be rolled out and promoted.  Being new, relevant, or cutting edge can help keep people interested in your park.  One idea - DJ night - try it for a few weeks, then stop and see if it works so you either pull the plug or keep it going.

Take time to Recharge - Schedule a vacation for yourself now.  Have something to look forward to that rewards all your hard work.

Vacation Time is GO Time

If you ever wondered why some kids only come down once a month or once a year to your park, maybe you need to wow them every time they are there.  This sounds like a lot of work, but really what I am talking about is the little things, the things that matter to a customer.  How do your people interact with the skaters and the parents?  Can they improve?  How clean is the park?  Can it be cleaner?  Fresh paint, new trash can lids, and new posters can really make a difference.  Could you spend a few hours patching things a little before the vacation holidays to make the park shine for the guests that haven't been able to come since their last school break?  Could you get your screw gun out and make a new little fun box, pull out an old rail, put in a little vert extension on the mini-ramp?  These little tweaks aren't going to put your business over the edge cost wise but they could very well be the difference in getting repeat customers.  So part of your go-plan should include tidying up for the crowds, and re-emphasizing customer service and friendliness to you staff.

As long as we are on plans for retraining your staff, a holiday membership drive could be another needed emphasis this xmas.  Every entrance should have membership details in their hands.  What sort of cheap advertising can you get them to take home?  How about a calendar of events, or a calendar of park photos, friends and associates of theirs ripping it up at your park.  Bulk orders of these bring your cost per person down, and what a great add on to that membership.  While you're at it, why not blow up some kid photos to poster size and decorate your park with them?  If you have someone on staff with a great camera, pay them to take some photos and throw the stuff together.  It is well worth the effort and the employee will really enjoy the "promotion".  With all the new people coming down with their friends from out of town, make the most of their visit to encourage them to be members, talk the park up, and come back again!  Happy Holidays.

Check out the progress of a new park!

Greetings all, thought I would key you into a park that is in the making.  All Together Skatepark is being built in Seattle Washington and is going through many of the things that you all might be interested in.  Starting up a park in a city is expensive, starting one indoors even more so.  Check out their progress here: http://www.alltogetherskatepark.com .  Many of the people that helped me get going when I owned a park are working on this new iteration.  One thing that hopefully you all are learning is that it takes a lot of help and a lot of information to get all your services and setup together.  Chris is making it happen in Seattle now.  Do you have another project to help us all look at the process of making a park or advancing a park?  Let me know (contact info on right) and I will help you promote and plan.  Don't forget that I have a good book on opening a park and obviously this blog is a good resource too.   Good luck ATS.

Multi-use room?

They say that if you have space, something always fills it.  My garage is a good example of that, as I can't put the car in there anymore.  But what about the space you have that isn'g getting used in the skatepark.  If you have or can carve out some space with a temporary wall the space will be used and often it will generate revenue.  Many of the bounce houses and other kid friendly places around use party rooms to generate income.  These party rooms often are rented above and beyond the price of skating (or bouncing in the above scenario) and come with a food requirement too.  If you have a space that you can make comfortable with tables and chairs, this would be a perfect way of getting weekend and weekday traffic with groups.  Birthdays, meetings, specialty classes, card games, private areas during events, whatever you can think of, this space could serve many needs that you can also put a price on.  While some might be worth more (parties) others like card games and meetings can fill times during the days you don't have many customers.  So don't fill your room with junk and clutter, use it to make money and provide a good service for your clients.

Time to plan your year

As we wind our way through January, it is time to get our plan going for the rest of the year.  Too often we are surprised by how quick the time passes and we haven't advertised our camps, haven't planned out our new ramp build, haven't worked on getting the pro tours or events at our parks and then it is too late.  This why it is important for skatepark owners to get a big calender out and start blocking time for events, camps, and construction.  These are all things that need doing now, in January as you look to how you will make the most of this year.  If you can plan your camp now, what it does is edge out the other camps that parents sign their kids up for. You are competing now with a summer that fills quickly for young skateboarders.  By getting your flyers, mailers and ads out now, you can fill your camps quickly and ensure another packed summer.  Many parenting magazines have "camp" issues that come out soon, so having advertisements ready to place in these will also help you take advantage of good advertising.  Camp ads that reach your parent's market are usually well worth the money.  Getting an article together, with photos can also help get some extra free press that helps the magazine with content, and helps you with raising awareness.  We all know that you have ideas and plans for the year, and January is a great time to get them on paper, with time committed to making them happen.  I suggest that as you are looking for ways of filling your calendar with events, look to your staff for suggestions and ideas.  Give them specifics like we need a march weekend event or weekday event and set one or two to plan it and create it.  Offer them ownership of these events and you will soon find, these could be really great things for you and your park.  Don't forget to download the local school calendars too so that you can take advantage of days off with longer hours, or special sessions.

How to start an indoor skatepark

As a guide I thought I would break down what a novice would need to do to start a skatepark from scratch.

1. Formulate a plan - how will it work, who will work it, how will you pay your bills, what business structure (tax and liability issues) will you have?

2.  Do some research - Do you even know where you could put a park?  What are the costs per month of the building? taxes? parking? how will people get there?  How many skaters are there, and how many of these will pay to skate?

3. Get your finances in order.  Do you have money?  Do you have enough to exist for 6 months without earning a cent?  How long will you be able to have expenses without making money before things will get stressful?  The longer you can last, the longer you will last. You will need build up time with lots of expenses and no income.  What happens too if people are slow to respond? Plan for the worst case scenario, and work for the best.  Can you spread your own finacial liability out with other investors?

4.  Market before you have anything going.  Start the buzz early.

5.  Plan for a media blitz for when you open, get all the free press you can.  Invite web, print, tv to your place.  Have an "event".

6.  Maximize your revenue.  Don't just rely on skateboarders to pay the bills.  Sell food, stuff, lessons, rentals, private park hours, party rooms, party events, christian events, before and after school events, camps, demos, advertisements, group lessons, what every you can.  There is no shame in making this business work by selling things, this is your business, you have to pay yourself, your taxes, lights, sewer, trash, etc.

7.  Keep it clean, think of the parents.  Parents want a safe place for their kids, they are the ones footing the cost of this place.  Make them happy with a nice place to watch, use the rest room, read whatever.  Sell them things while they are there.

8.  Network - skateshops, other parks, parks departments, community service, police, whomever can help you get people in the door.

9.  Keep good track of your expenses.  This takes time and effort.  Make sure you have a good system to record data for you, what sells, what doesn't, who comes, who doesn't.  Use your data to improve your business.

10.  Hire good people who are kind yet firm about helping you stay in business.  Free only means you paid, not them.  You aren't competing with free, free offers nothing but ramps and rails, you offer lights, food, supervision, air conditioning, heat, a phone, a pair of eyes that are ready to help if someone is hurt. This is worth money and people need to understand this.

11.  Free yourself to do business things - If you are spending all your time at the park, hire someone to help you do the things you need to do.  Spend some money.  Is your money better spent hiring someone to man the front, or design an advertisement?

12. Celebrate your members!  Make them want to belong!