Diversify your offerings

Beyond simply adding sessions or events to your day you can diversify your offerings in your space to help your business grow.  Who hasn't seen McDonald's playgrounds, or gone to an indoor soccer building with some climbing wall operation off in a corner?  These two ideas can be a way that your site could use some of it's space to help get people through the door.  Programming of events and services is always important, but having a large source of revenue is equally important.  Right now you might have your entrances, events, lessons, food, and as my last post pointed out - a party room, so where do you go from there?  I was reading an interesting article recently from wired.com about the Lumberyard indoor mountainbike park and thought that here was another offering that used many of the building and management skills you probably already have.  Take a look here: http://www.wired.com/design/2013/04/lumberyard-mountain-bike-course/  Finding revenue sources that fit with your space and your clientele is a double win.  Being able to attract people from a larger part of your area can help you make a strong and viable business.  While your heart may be in one aspect of the business like skateboarding or BMX biking, there are good reasons to consider offering more aspects of your business that are complimentary.  So say you have a really good indoor park with an outside area, perfect for a BMX racing course.  Or what about the massive ceiling hight you could put in a high ropes course over the track or a climbing wall.  Like I had said on my last post, an empty room is an opportunity, and an empty section of your park is also one.  What you will be doing is expanding your resources, taking advantage of your current systems and making the most of your existing skill sets.

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.

Using Fobs or other door entry systems for added benefits

Some people have wanted to give access to their skateparks to others who have either helped out a lot for free, or they are their "friends" or whatever reason they have.  While there are some safety and liability issues at stake here, giving out a key to your park could be a reasonable idea with certain protections in place.  Firstly if you simply give a hard key to someone, you will never know when they are in the park if you don't have a system for tracking this.  Who is there?  How respectful are they?  These are some things that you should know, and randomly showing up at the park is not the answer.  FOB systems and or card-readers could be a way to get a handle on who is in the park and when.  With FOBs or readers you can track when people enter the park and you can change these FOBs out when you want to revoke a privilege that has been abused, or as you change people's jobs and roles.  This can help you also manage when people are opening the park up in the day too as you can set time parameters for the doors to unlock.  It can also tell you when a door is propped and more.  If you were to combine this with a simple security system, managing how people come to the park when you aren't there can be better understood.  FOB systems can also be used to grant levels of entrance, so that if someone is able to enter the park, they might not be allowed to enter other areas that are secured and locked.  It could save you from carrying loads of keys.  Depending on how the park is setup, allowing entrance via a FOB or card system can be arranged as a benefit for members as well.  With smaller end parks that don't have open areas of food and merchandise and money systems could use the FOB and member system as a graduated level of support.  This could be organized where more expensive memberships allow for access anytime and lesser members can only come during certain hours.  The YMCA uses this type of system as do certain gyms, and a card door reader or a FOB system could be a way to create this type of benefit.  In the end it beats giving out a key and then having to try and get it back.  Fob systems start around $60, and get more expensive from there.  But for the access and ease of use, FOBs and door readers could be a good way of giving your people access while still maintaining control.

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.

How to start a skatepark with little to no money

So a lot of people are interested in starting a skatepark, but unfortunately they don't have much, if any money.  I have been asked frequently about getting parks running without a substantial investment from the business originator.  Honestly speaking, this is very hard to do.  Imagine if you will, someone who has earned a bit of money in their life, and they are interested in your plan.  When they hear that you won't be adding any funds yourself, they decide it is best to go elsewhere.  Why?  Because you have little to risk in the venture.  Sure you have your time and you have the organization, but in the end, what would keep you from simply walking away because you haven't made any money and bills are piling up at home?  What would the investor in this situation do?  Sound like a good place to put money?  When buying anything, people want assurances that they will get their money back and usually they want more than they put in.  It is the money that you put in that helps them make this decision easier.  If you are asking for no more than you are investing, or even less, then it is something people will consider.  Even banks don't want to loan money to businesses that need it, unless they have the money in the bank to "secure it".  This is why getting a morgage is easier than getting a personal loan, the property backs it up so if a person defaults on the loan, skips town so to speak, the bank still has a sellable house to recoup any loss.  It is the same with a business like a skatepark.

So what is to be done?  The only option that works is the Co-op model.  A co-op is where a group of people with similar interests or needs get together as a group to create buying power.  Here's a real world example: People in a community join together to buy power as a single entity.  When one house buys power it has little wiggle room to get a better rate.  But if a community of 100-500 houses get together, they can get a better rate.  So if your town needs a skatepark, and the town won't build one, then you as a skater/biker will have little influence on your own.  But if you all join together, you can either force the city into action (which is a typical tactic) or you can start one yourselves.

How can a skatepark be a Co-op?  First of all let's make a few assumptions, that there are over 500 skaters in the surrounding community that needs a park, and there is little to no places a person can go to skate. (I will use skater as shorthand for bikers as well, I hope this is ok.)  If each of these skaters were to scrape together $1000, and were willing to join together in a group to get their individual needs met, then a skatepark could gather $500,000 to start a park.  If the park were to be smaller, the investment could be too.  So if you know 10 skaters and they know 10 others, and they all know 5 others, you now have 500 people.  By setting up an account (so people can see their money is safe), you have now gathered enough to start a park.  Of course it will take organizing, but you have the investment, one of the hardest things to get.  Lets say you want this to happen but getting $1,000 is to hard.  What about $20 per week?  Basically if a person were to put away $20 a week, they could have the investment together within a year.  With automatic transfers, this would be easy enough for the average person.

So now that the investment end is dealt with, what would the business look like.  1. it could be totally private with only the investors/members allowed to use it or it could be part private with days of pay for skating, or, it could be all public, with the investors taking their money from the profits in the form a a dividend (when there is enough money in the bank, the extra is given back to the members.  2. It would be run by a board of directors who are voted on by the members.  Once the people agree to start the Co-op and put the money up for it, a board is established (even a temporary one would do at the start), and the board then makes decisions for the park.  3. The membership is responsible, in the end, for keeping the skatepark going, so if it is totally private, the money that the park needs for the next year is paid by the members (if say the operating costs were $100,000 then each member would need to pay $100).  4.  Members are usually required to work at the co-op in some fashion (office, desk, what ever).

Sound like a good idea?  I think it is one of the few ways today to get a park going without really deep pockets.  There are publications about co-ops on the web if you want more information on how to make one.  I'd be willing to help, let me know if you are interested.

More Business Models for Skateparks

Some skateparks try to work like Golds Gym but they often don't go all the way.  Patrons pay a monthly fee, a membership, and skate when they want.  Unfortunately this model is not very successful for skateparks because of the high cost often asked for up front.  With a 12$ session fee versus a $50 monthly fee (I've seen more), kids, teens, adults and their parents are wary about how much they will use this service.  Unlike Golds Gym where anyone with a pulse can sign up, skateparks are in a smaller market to attract people to their service.  Because Golds Gym can get so many people in, and the industry has accepted their 25$ or so cost, they are able to make money with lower monthly premiums.  But in many ways, skateparks can operate like this too, it just takes someone to start.  First a park would have to eliminate sessions, and thus also eliminate $12 fees.  The only way you can get in the gym is pay the monthly fee, with a credit card.  If the market can support this idea, then the skatepark can run like a gym.  But since no parks are doing this now, an owner would take some risk to pull it off. Why?  Basically gym style pricing schemes would offer the skatepark more financial security because it collects money on a monthly recurring basis.  These memberships are tied to credit cards that are automatically charged each month.  So say that 500 members all pay $50 a month to skate for as much as they want, the skatepark is looking at a $25,000 revenue stream per month.  This revenue can be taxed differently too as it is not "entrance" fees which often are taxed like concert tickets.  Within this scenerio, planning becomes easier because revenues are relatively constant.  Added emphasis and efforts are given to keeping the membership going and happy.  I am sure a few parks out there would like to know that this sort of money was coming in monthly.  Even without food or other sales, revenue of $300k per year would be welcome in many parks.  So Golds Gym is not the worst way of looking at your business structure, but you should see what your market can take before you change your current park's finances.