Skate School

Adding value is a way to increase revenue and provide for a need in the community.  Often times parents want their kids to be safe and have fun.  Providing a structured program of lessons and "camps" is one way to implement a program of skate school.  Taking a weekday and having lessons in the evenings, providing for younger kids to skate in the weekend mornings with instructors, scheduling a sign up for specific skill sessions like kick flips and ollies.  Designing a program that works for your population needs to be planned based off of conversations with customers.  Without their input on what works for them, you could make a lot of work for little reward.  These lessons and sessions are a good way to sell camps too.  Remember to add the little things that make these special like prizes and certificates and stickers.

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.

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.

Expand Your Brand

As you are able to separate yourself out from operations, expansion is always an option.  Unfortunately if you are cash strapped, expansion is going to have to be done by bringing in more investors.  While many of you are probably wary of this, there are many people out there who are looking for good investments, and having a solid product with solid sales and a solid growth plan are keys to attracting investors.  If you want to go big, you have to think big.  If you think that you want to simply run a park that is open from this hour to that, then you can expect to remain at that level.  If you have a vision whereby you want your brand to expand and grow, then this has to be your vision and you have to plan for this.  As a skatepark, how can you grow your brand?  One way is like Woodward, where your specialty is camps, and your expansion becomes events.  There are many companies out there looking for venues that are flexible enough to help them market their own events, and your place could become that venue.  Lots of work would then be focused on achieving this goal.  Similarly if you have a product and a retail presence, you can become a larger presence with that product.  Look at an area that is underserved in your market and exploit that.  Lastly you can expand like DC Shoes, Vans shoes has as well, creating more parks in more cities.  The key to what they do is to look at what their brand is, and use that as the center of the expansion.  Reinventing your brand, or creating a logical offshoot of your brand (extreme events, camps etc) can help you move into a new level of business where you are not only more successful, but also more profitable.  A good exercise would be to sit down with your management team and see if they can envision this change with you.  Bringing in people who share your vision and have a quality skill set is also a good idea.  Good luck.

As the new year is fast approaching I'd like to go over another way to help you make money this coming year.  It starts with an upgrade to your member management system.  Looking into how you manage your members via a system will help you maximize your understanding of your business.  Membership software and cloud-based systems while pricey can on average generate 30-50% more per member than paper and cash-register alone.  Recently I had a conversation with Hossein Noshirvani at Motionsoft, a company specializing in membership software.  We talked about the potential of membership software as it relates to skateparks and he really understands how you all can be benefitted by technology.  While most all of us agree that maintaining a website and facebook page and even a twitter feed are good for our business, some of us balk at the cost and complexity of membership software.  Lets all agree to a few things, having a membership and visitor database that can track and offer reminders and deals to every visitor is possible for most of us no matter how big or small we are.  Lets also agree that for our legal liability issues, having quick access to emergency info and contacts is invaluable for the prosperity of the business, but also for the peace-of -mind of the parents.  So beyond these aspects that could be obtained through other means, lets look at how membership programs, particularly ones that are cloud-based can help your business.

Financially the membership program can really help you maximize your business income.  These types of software can generate lists of visits, frequency, and track purchases.  Even without a membership, say you decide to issue cards like loyalty cards at the supermarket, the membership software can generate notices for you to send reminders and discounts to people to come back to the park, to purchase a new helmet, or offer a special on a new deck because it has been a long time since purchasing one.  With the membership and a card, the child can be offered a declining balance at the park allowing for the participant to buy stuff at the park without carrying money.

As far as memberships go, membership software could help you create different classes of memberships where certain times are off limits such as they do with health clubs during off-peak hour members.  You could offer a $100 anytime membership and a $50 membership off peak or no Fridays or Saturdays. Those that have the $50 membership would have to pay a fee to visit these other times.  Or you could offer a membership with a number of uses like a punchcard where coming into the park costs say $20 and you get 3 sessions and you have to buy 3 sessions at a time.  At the same time, the membership software will track visits, allow you mail or email reminders to "re-up" or you can have them automatically re-up with a credit card on file.  The system will create peak times based on visitors and so you can accurately predict typical numbers for tracking as well as allowing for "maximum capacity" warnings.  With professional and accurate information, you can make the best decisions regarding your park.

As we have mentioned the tracking of purchasing and targeting of advertisements, membership software can also be tied into promotions and membership lead generation.  Getting member referrals can be offered through the system so that members get benefits for bringing in their friends.  You can offer discounts for liking on Facebook which will help spread the word.  Amazon offers this now when you purchase stuff from them they offer a quick way of posting your purchase to facebook.  What great and almost free advertisement that would be.

In many ways membership software in needed in your park to keep you generating leads and helping with promotions.  It formalizes a relationship, creates professionalism, and helps you organize your business.  Of all the tools you have, by far membership software is the way to go.  While Noshirvani at Motionsoft states that his company might not be right for your business, he said he would be happy to talk to you about your needs, and if he can't help you he'd show you some others who could.  Good luck and set your sights high for 2013!

Skatepark things parents want

Most for-profit skateparks understand that a significant part of their money comes from younger kids.  These kids are brought to the park by the parents or the neighbor and these adults need to be pleased in order to get them back.  Finding out what parents looking for in a skatepark isn't rocket science, and if you really want to know, ask them.  Here are a few things that parents expressed to me wanting for their children.

1. Safe and clean-  I talked with one park owner who said he never swept the course.  Parents want a safe clean environment for their kids.  When they come into the park they want to be able to watch their kid, understand that someone else is looking out for their safety, and not sit in a trashed place.  True, kids are tough on things, but this has to be part of what you are offering to the parents, a clean environment.  If you go to kid friendly places like those inflatable bounce houses or Chuck-E-Cheese's you see that the place is clean, orderly, not so comfy (easy to clean is often not comfortable), with people around to offer service.  This is a big cost of their business, keeping the place clean and staffed, but this is why parents go.  The bathrooms are clean too, and when a person comes in to your park, expect the bathrooms to be a selling point too especially if you are selling lots of soda and the people are there for several hours.  Don't cheap-out on maintenance of your bathrooms. Having a chart of cleaning can be a good way of looking at this (freeing up someone on weekends and busy vacation time is a good idea).  Safe and clean also refers to the way the place looks.  With bikes and boards bumping things, you might need to paint more frequently.  Putting plastic lumber up could be a way to keep the wooded areas from fraying.  You can also get sheets of plastic from farmtek.com  that are used to keep horses from destroying their stalls.  If a horse has a hard time kicking through this stuff, a deck or bike will too.  Small strips of this attached to key parts of waiting areas and ramp railings can keep your park looking good.  Sometimes older skaters smoke too.  If they do, don't let them hang in front of your door, designate a place to smoke that isn't the first thing that parents see when they come in.  In addition make sure that you inspect the parking lot frequently.  Sometimes people litter, and your lot can look really crappy quick.  Again, with older skaters, alcohol bottles sometimes are left in your lot as these skaters don't feel like driving around with empties in their car.  Clearly stating "no alcohol" is one deterrent, but in the end, you have to make sure that your lot is clean.
     Safe is also a matter of controlling flow.  If your park is too packed, value for the customer suffers.  Consider limits per session.  Make sure too that if you have people together, big people aren't bulling their way through.  Code of conduct is printed on the back of lift tickets to deal with aggressive skiing and address the idea that maybe everyone isn't as considerate of others as they need to be to prevent injury.  So posting a "code" can help remind people that you care and help you have conversations with some of the riders.  Keeping little kids safe can also mean having a "grom" or little kid session so that parents know that these kids have only little kids around them.  Public parks don't offer this, and it could be a real selling point for you.

2.  Affordable.  Not all parents are pinching pennies, but with multiple kids in a family, it becomes expensive quick to bring the family to the park.  Family membership rates is a start, loyalty punch cards, sibling discounts, car-load discounts on slower days, packages (lesson plus...), etc can help.  Don't give away the park by any means, but look at your pricing compared to other things the people can do.  Baby sitters (sometimes we feel like them don't we), go for $6-10 per hour, movies are $12+ now-a-days, lift tickets for skiing are $50+, entrance to bounce houses are $8+ depending on location.  Given this, ask yourself, how often do you need to get families in, how do you get the most from the kids that come too?  I have written about other ways of generating income other than entrances, so refer to those posts as you look at affordability.  Don't forget that you are looking at about 3% of the population, unlike movies and bounce houses, not every kid will be able or want to come to your park.  But you still are competing for the attention of these kids and their parents with the other things they could be doing.

3. Service.  Parents want the special things that a private park offers like supervision, answering questions via the phone and email, having people there for parties and lessons, having med kits, food, equipment, rental helmets, and the like.  Having a phone protocol is important, this is first face of the business.  Rude, impatient phone or in-person behavior will turn off some parents.  Make a clear effort to answer every email in a timely manner, as well as updating any websites, flyers, and other means of communication.  Having your staff off their own phones is necessary too.  Since you are paying them, they need to be working, not chatting.  Quick responses to things like spills, injuries, calling to follow up with rentals, sending membership letters every month, making the place clean, making things easy for the parents is key to your service.

In the end though why not ask people to fill out a survey?  See what you are doing well and where you need to improve.  Survey Monkey and poll everywhere are free and paper surveys are a fine way of getting feedback from parents as they sit looking for something to do while their kids are playing.

Business models for a skatepark

When considering how to make a business like a skatepark, one must look at other models to see how they run their business, and what a skatepark can use as their model.  The basic model used by many skateparks looks a lot like a roller rink, movie house, or amusement park.  In this model, patrons pay entrance and enjoy their time.  From many of these skatepark operations we see a reliance on entrances as the means of supporting the park.  Due to the fickle nature of skateboarders and often reliant on weather to drive people indoors, this model may not be the best one for every environment.  Unlike movies that change their show every week, skateparks are very static in their offerings.  Often change requires money and time, which is hard to come by sometimes especially if entrances are and have been down.   Similar to this model is the amusement park.  The largest parks rely on people traveling large distances to participate.   6 flags has an enormous budget and spends extensive money on innovation and novelty.  This model requires a lot of funds, advertising, and less change, but is similar in operations as a skatepark.  Both of these businesses have high prices, often have one to two visits per person per year, caters to older children and adults, and uses a captive audience and high food mark ups to make most of their money.  They also have the advantage of not offering a specialized skill sport as their only draw, which makes them more capable of appealing to a larger audience.  The point of these two operations that I feel could be emulated (copied) would be the easy to prepare and relatively profitable food choices, and the layout of amusement parks as a way to offer different experiences in a park within the confines of your building's space.  Food, if possible, needs to be a part of a park that relies on entrances as a means of income.  Offering something for the fans, friends, and parents of the patrons allows you to maximize the market and profit from visitors to your park.  Everyone gets hungry and thirsty but not everyone can ride your ramps.  Providing and monopolizing on every visitor can make your business profitable.  Similarly you can offer a different experience in your park's confines by laying out your park into different skate areas.  You could have a street course, a tricks area, and some miniramps, all typical parts of a skatepark.  But if they are crammed one on top of another, then the idea of "park" is gone.  What if you had areas that were designed for these types of skaters separated with walkways, seating areas, concession carts and the like, to provide "park" to your skatepark.  While some could argue that these areas don't maximize the skating which is what these parks are selling, I would counter that you are actually offering more than just some ramps pushed up against the wall.  You are offering a skate scene, and this is crafted and manipulated by you.  While a movie house is offering the latest flicks, it is also offering a movie experience that differs from your home.  Similarly, an amusement park understands that quality attractions do bring the customers in, and getting them to stay, relax, and have fun requires spaces  where they can relax, meet up, and eat food.  Looking to these aspects of other similar businesses can help you create a skatepark that is interesting, unique, and profitable.  I will blog soon with other examples of business models that could work for different types of skateparks.