What can skatepark membership privileges look like?

When most skateparks open they ask their patrons to chose between being a member or non-member.  Why?  One idea would be to have no memberships.  What do you really need a membership for?  The skater doesn't need it if he/she can pay a few dollars more and still enter.  So why would a membership be attractive?  Often we see that memberships are like sales coupons: member price = less.  In grocery stores they have memberships and can track your buying and funnel products at you based on deals they get from suppliers.  At REI your membership means you get a yearly dividend as an "owner".  In skateparks often we see that members have a lower price on entrances and other services, much like a warehouse buying service.  You pay once a year and you can then pay less for things you want.  Sometimes this includes membership prices on goods and services like shirts and camps.  You don't have to buy a membership but if you are thrifty and come often enough you can save a lot of money.  Many people don't think along these lines of future savings.  They want the savings now.  If your membership is pricey, then you will have to really want to support your park, or your park must be extremely expensive.  So what can skateparks do to make memberships that are costly attractive to the potential patron?  What would be a reasonable goal for these memberships.  Lets look at scenarios to see costs, and returns.

Most would think a $25 membership is affordable.  So if you are going budget capable membership, what would you offer with this to make it worth your wile to offer it at this price?  If you said you get to skate this time and next time for free for example, and your sessions for members costs $12, you would be able to sell this as an affordable way for them to be here.  You could give them a get in free pass with the idea being they could use it on the next visit.  This would be a good selling point and could move quite a few of these per year.  If you have an i.d. the cost of this would have to be taken out as would taxes, so you would in all likelihood take in $22.50 of this.  If you sell 1000 over the course of the year this would generate $22,500.  If the membership was not offered and these 1000 people came in at $15 for 2 sessions you could generate about $30,000 less tax and no member card costs.  While we can you don't have to offer a free session, the bottom line is effected.  What does the membership add to your revenue flow at this cost.  The membership is a good tool for gaging the loyalty of your patrons.  You have a way of identifying with the park as you are a card carrying member.  You get special letters in the mail and maybe specials every month.  But are these enough to justify losing $7500 in revenue?  Maybe not at $25.  The problem of price point is very tricky.  Figuring out what you need to offer as an incentive is hard to figure and something that you can survey your current members and your current partons about.  This could help you get a handle on how much to charge for a membership.

I would suggest that memberships should be special and they should cost a substantial amount of money.  I suggest you price your membership at $150 or more but offer a lot for this.  What days can you give them for free?  How much can you offer them for use of the place?  How many member events can you generate?  This will depend on how your patrons see your place.  What if you were able to get 1000 people to buy in at this level?  Could you make your rent on $150,000 and have members enter free everyday?  Why would they see this as value if every time they come the place is filled with nonmembers and the place is crowded?  Could you make it free of others most of the time?  Obviously the busiest 2 days are Friday and Saturday, with Sunday the next busiest.  What if you had Sundays through Thursdays as member only and free?  Does this now make $150 (or more depending on your size) worth it?  Add in sales of stuff, 2 busy open days, special events, and you might have a good plan here.  The membership now has meaning, this is their park, they paid for it.  They have now the identity of a park member and you can really look to them for support, hype, and pride.  Obviously, looking at your pricing is a good idea, but one that needs a lot of thought.  I recommend you study this and see if it would work.  Once you set your price, set your goal and get all your staff on-board selling this.  Set sales goals, offer prizes, put out promos. Good luck.  Go skate.

Dealing with a Disaster At Your Skatepark

Sometimes things happen in the world that negatively affect your skatepark.  With the weather events of recent months, and all the fires and other things that are effecting different areas, I thought I would spend a little time going over what you should do to deal with a disaster.

1.  Have a plan ahead of time.  You need to know the numbers of your lawyer, insurance agent, and key staffers and investors.  Keep a sheet at home and in the office of these numbers so that you can act without being inside the building if needs be.  Having a calling tree so that you don't have to call everyone on your staff, you call one, and he/she calls the next etc.

2.  Let your public know what is happening.  Rumor control starts with you.  If you didn't suffer any damage, if your place was ruined, let the people know.  Sympathy can go a long way to getting help fixing, and to making a reopening an event.

3.  Assess the damage, assess how you can recover.  Sometimes things are ruined that you can't recover from financially as you were.  You have two options at this time, call it quits or try to reopen.  If money is the problem and insurance isn't covering it, you can raise money from your members, add investors, or look to the banks for a loan, have a disaster sale etc.  There are also community resources available for small businesses (these are very competitive but you should try for them).  But the main issue is what you need to do for your sanity.  Restarting can be hard and take a lot of energy so you need to either go all in, or not.

4.  If people were hurt you need to talk to your lawyer first.  You can express to the people who were hurt concern, send a get well card, give them a call on the phone and hope that they are all right.  Your lawyer will say "don't ever admit wrong doing".  This is possible while at the same time expressing a human hope that the persons hurt will recover.  You have to worry about lawsuits when people are hurt, often they will cast a wide net as a matter of practice to see if they can get money to help with their costs.  So speaking with your lawyer is a good idea anytime there are "issues" with the park.  You should have a working relationship with a lawyer anyway.  I know it sucks to go in to the office, speak with this person for 1/2 an hour and get charged like $200.  But protecting yourself and your business is important too, and these periodic meetings help ensure a good relationship and ensure that you are addressing your liability and risk issues.  If you are concerned about the costs of these visits, have an agenda when you go in, limit non productive time, and get out quick.

5. Clean up and get back to work!  With contests, events, and lessons, reschedule these events.  Spend some money advertising to get the word out to those people who might not know that you are open yet.  Plan a big re-opening event with music, contests, etc. to generate a buzz.  Update all your media, website, twitter, facebook, google+, or other forums that you publish.  Get the word to the parents that you are safe, clean, and ready to entertain!  Getting the word out will take a little more than just opening your door, especially if there was a lot of damage in the area.  Spend the time and money to let your constituents know your are doing business.  You might have to cut back on some hours of staff at first if business continues to be slow.  There is little predicting how the community will react to a disaster and you need to be flexible, proactive, and responsive.

Take Time to Recharge

In September, when the kids start back in school, my skatepark was slow, even on the weekends.  Kids who normally would be coming to the park were active with school friends doing things outside, or somewhere else.  For this reason I recommend that in late August, early September, it is OK for you to take a break, have some vacation time with your loved ones, see your family, recharge.  When I was running the park I took off very few days, and this is not healthy for your relationships, your health, and your sanity.  While I understand the need to stay open, such as high rent, not wanting to miss out on potential members, or whatever, I also understand that the energy you need to meet the busy winter, the resetting of your moods and whatever else a little time off would do are also important.  There are several ways you can take a break and still feel like you are doing something, but you don't have to.  Your staff could use a break too, so why not now?

1. The working holiday-  Take a break yourself from all that you have to do with the park while your expert builders redesign a new obstacle, or have your manager rework your inventory, inspect and justify all your supplies, and design and implement a new fall sale.  The idea here is that others can keep working to have a great kickoff for fall while you take a needed break.  Hopefully you ended the summer with a flush of summer camp money, and this can help take care of these expenses.

2.  The total break- everyone is off for a week or two (or 3 if you can afford it).  This will help everyone get things done they have been putting off, see their folks.

3.  Trusted management keeps the place open.  This is an owner's break and doesn't mean that you have to not keep running.  If you have staff you trust, then they should be able to keep the park running while you are away.  Several things are needed for this to work however.  As I stated earlier, if you end of summer was anything like mine, it could be really slow and then having a staff on would be costly for what little gain you would have.  Plus what would having it open do to your anxiety level?  Ask yourself if you would constantly want to know how things were going, and whether this would interrupt your break.  If you are OK with this type of stressor, then would having a check-in plan help?  Maybe you have a call to you every other day, or something like that.  You can also install, if you haven't already, web cams to watch what is going on in your park.  These could be a good idea for security purposes anyway and could be hooked up to a website that would record days worth of video.  Whatever you do, think of your sanity and peace of mind first.

In the end you are looking for a good time to catch some rest.  By taking a slow time of year off, you can address your personal needs while not hurting your bottom line.  The thing you want to avoid in doing this, is taking random breaks that are unannounced and not really posted.  Don't just lock your door and go on vacation, give the people proper warning first, say 2 or more weeks of notice.

A first review of the new book From Concrete Disciples.com

Hey everyone - check out a great resource and look at the new review of the book (official release date is Aug. 15th. Check out the site and the review at http://www.concretedisciples.com/feature-skateboarding-articles/skateboard-product-reviews/item/4308-the-skatepark-owners-manual.html

While your are at it, why not check out another good resource for promoting yourself and your events from the owner of Charm City Skate Park: http://www.globalskateboardingnetwork.com/

Enjoy!

Make the Most of Your Skatepark Staff

As a business owner you will need to have staff at times even if you are small to make all the hours you need to be open successful.  As a skatepark, this staff can languish behind the counter.  Making sure that these people are fully working will allow you ensure the most work for your money.

1.  Staff sales goals.  Give your staff incentives to meet the sales goals you want.  You can even have a fun competition on memberships, multiple punch entrance cards, camps, or lessons.  Whatever you have to sell could be put into the goal.  You don't have to just make it fun either, this could be a good tool for reviewing who is working well in this environment.  If someone consistently doesn't make the goals, more training or another job could be called for.

2.  Training.  Staff needs to be brought in for training so they know what to do, when, and how to sell your stuff.  You can go over areas needing work, or what weekly projects need to be done on the slower times.

3. Projects.  All people like being part of a plan.  Make a few projects.  Have them plan an event start to finish, review it and give them feedback.  If they are at the front desk have them file, fill out mailers, straighten, clean.  Give them a work checklist.

4. Staff parties.  Plan on having the staff out to a party to celebrate them.  Usually Christmas is the time of office parties, but you could do a seasonal one.  Showing your appreciation of them will help them stay happy.

5.  Give them written reviews of their performance.  Pepper the bad with good as well.  Have a 1 on 1 meeting with each and go over what you see.  Listen to their ideas, their complaints, their praise, and things that you can fix, fix.

Above all, get the most out of your employees by making them do more than just sit there waiting.  They will be happier and will help your park's success.

Summer doesn't have to mean the slow season

     Often when the sun is out and the weather is hot, indoor skatepark's business slows.  But it doesn't have to be the low point of your financial year.  With all the kids out of school, now is a good opportunity to promote yourself, generate new business and run things that can really make your financial year.  Here are 10 suggestions for this summer to make the most of the time that kids are off.

1.  Camps.  Camps need to be scheduled for the summer time.  Parents are looking for things for their kids to do, and you can provide a supervised, interesting experience for their kids that they will talk about the rest of the summer.  Varying from a morning 1/2 day session to a full day, your camp can take advantage of your assets.  In addition, you will make your employees happy with additional ways of making money in a fun and structured session.  If you have a van or can work out travel, you can make a full day experience for the kids with trips to a pool, other parks, basketball, or to get ice cream.  The easiest scenerio is to have a 1/2 day camp.  At Rain City Skatepark we offered families the ability to stay all day in a 1/2 day structured and an additional 1/2 day unstructured.  We charged additional for the kids to stick around and staffed it with responsible teenagers to look after them.  As a note, you should contact your insurance person if you are adding driving and van issues to your service as this might need additional coverage.

2.  Overnight - why not have a "sleepover" at the park.  Filled with Pizza, music, games, and skating.

3.  Private parties - promote renting the park for parties.

4. Music nights - get a dj to make a regular event night for skaters

5. Contests

6. Demos

7.  Send the skateteam out into the public with fliers or other promotions.

8.  Special Bonus Night - like 2 for one or member bring a friend night.

9.  How to build a ramp- "value added" shop class for a fee

10.  Sponsor me contest- become a skatepark skater.

Every event that is not charging entrance the focus needs to be on selling memberships, drinks, food, and merchandise.  This will help make what some perceive to be a "free day"a profitable day.  Good luck.

Check Out Your Front!

  If you haven't looked at your place like a parent would,  maybe you should.  While it is nice to think that skaters don't care, skaters enjoy a park because it is gritty and mean, parents don't.  If you look at who buys all the clothes you sell, who rents the park at night, who pays for summer camp then you will see a lot of money comes to you from parents.  They are the ones that keep you in business when it is nice out and all the hard core skaters go outside.  So when you go out in the parking lot and look at your front, your facade, what does it say to someone who is looking for a clean, safe place to drop off their kids?  Are there a bunch of people smoking, butts everywhere, garbage blowing around?  This is helping make a decision for the moms and dads that keep you in business.  If you haven't recently, you really need to look at the front of your building with a set of eyes of a parent.  While you can have stuff for the more hardcore skaters that don't want a place that is totally sanitized, your main focus need to be geared toward the core of your money, your parents.  Why not ask a parent what they think of your front, your clean bathrooms, etc.  These are all things that make a difference.  You must keep the parents happy so that they feel comfortable dropping their kids off with money for a few hours while they do something else.  Make it so they feel OK with going shopping while the kids play.  If you can get them in the door you can sell them things. If you make it a necessary outing for the whole family where the parents don't feel safe, then chances are the parents won't come that often because they have to go shopping, drop off the laundry, visit Auntie in the hospital or whatever.  Get them in with a clean inviting front, keep them in with excellent service, sell them things while they are there.  Now you are making money!