Three Ways To Look at Our Business

There are only three perspectives from which we can view our business.

The first scenario is from the past. We look at how the business was and wish it would go back to that: Two (2) shifts of league bowlers, waiting lists and the only two problems we had was overbooking and slow bowlers. In this scenario, we do everything we can to take our business BACK to what it used to be.  Trouble with this perspective is that the particular jigsaw piece we are trying to fit into the puzzle is incorrect.  Because the puzzle has changed and the piece no longer fits.

The second scenario is the present perspective; we recognize the changing environment, economy, demographics and consumer attitude shifts and try to build contemporary products so we fire out a bunch of new promotions and programs, secretly hoping that we get ONE hit. (Hope is never a strategy)

The third scenario is the future. We build our products and programs in such a way as to define our vision of the future of our business. We don’t pray for the past or muck up the present with secret wishes. We work to build our future.

Better to ignore the past and present and look at our business with BOTH eyes on the future.

I Can't Get No Satisfaction

Much has been written about the jaded society we live in; the unending need for new stimulation and the desire to be first with the most new toys.

Yet, there seems to me to be an unfulfilled desire by people looking to find some new "satisfaction" in their purchases. People have come to settle for customer service that is just OK or to settle for a dinner that was OK or even a movie that was ho hum.

What are your customers unsatisfied about?

Is it the food and beverage offerings that they might describe as OK or is it the bowling experience which is about the same as anywhere else, only cheaper, or is it the fact that they really don't get  their hit of satisfaction with your whole deal...its just more of the same and its just OK?

If it was a better experience and was more satisfying, then more people would bowl more frequently. Sure 70 million people went bowling last year, but the vast majority of open play bowlers, some 65 to 68 million of them only went once or twice last year. 

Why is that?

Because they got the same experience, the same product and the same delivery, for better or for worse. We just didn't deliver anything new or exciting or, Heaven forbid, something different.

Think about your cosmic bowling experience. You have had it operational for over 10 years. The 16 year old high school sophomore who experienced it for the first time loved It and came every week. Now that sophomore is 26 years old and the cosmic experience that he once loved is 10 years old and not so satisfying.

If we settle for the tried and true; for the "way we have always done it" and for the obvious, we will continue to get a customer who only visits us once or twice a year instead of a customer who wants to visit more frequently because we are providing satisfaction.  Which kind of a customer would you want to have?

So here's the challenge, what are you or could you be doing differently to make your customer a more frequent customer?  Put on your brainstorm hat, your silly hat, your outrageous hat and...do something different?

For a change.








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New Kids Bowl Free Open Play Promotion To Be Revealed

Bruce Davis celebrated his 70th birthday last week with some buddies at his cottage in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  This beautifully wild and pristine  area was conducive to some great brainstorming and the Kids Bowl Team, who also spent some time there,dug in and came up with a great NEW open play promotion  for your center - it will  dramatically increase your open play lineage.  The good news is,  its not a discount program. And it all starts October 28, 2011 and will run through April 30, 2012
 
It's an exciting promotion that includes great elements:

- Instant FUN & Excitement for your existing open play guests
- Simple way to invite guests back in the next 45 days
- FUN National Prize Give Aways to build buzz to your open play program
- Done For You Emails To Your Entire Kids Bowl Free email list each week to invite them for the weekend & how to join in this fun PAID Games Promotion.

Bruce and Darin will share all of the details with you on a FREE tele-seminar...

Click here to get details on how you can join us on either September 15, 2011 at 3 PM EST or September 16, 2011 at Noon Est.

Click here if you can't attend either call, but you'd like us to send you the audio recording & have a member of our team follow up with you

Click here if you do not need an additional help with your open play traffic and do not want to learn more about this program

This exciting promotion will launch nationwide on October 28, 2011 and end on April 30, 2012.

Don't miss this FREE informational call where we'll  "tell all" and give you the first opportunity to participate.  

Please join us.

Have you Gone to the Movies Lately?

Recent reports indicate that movie attendance over the summer was down about 1%.  More startlingly is the fact that movie attendance this year was just 570 million visits; the lowest number since 2007 when attendance was 573 million visits.

Simply put, the economic stress on our country has deprived the middle class of discretionary income used for movies, gifts, restaurants, and guess what? Bowling?

Our core audience of 67 million people who went bowling has not shrunk. Its been about the same for about 15 years.  What has changed is the frequency of visits to our center.

We don't believe that frequency is down because the product is no longer appealing (although a few new product innovations certainly wouldn't hurt), but rather because of the pressing economics of the times.

Simply put, our customers either no longer see the value of bowling more frequently OR can no longer afford to more frequently bowl OR have traded off their decision to bowl with another activity (probably paying for food or gasoline).

To counter this, we need to find new customers. Customers with more discretionary income; customers who can afford bowling at the prices that will help us make a profit and enable us to reinvest in our business.  The alternative is to continue to discount our products  and make less and less money.

Who are these customers?  Households earning over $60k ( U.S. median household income is $49,000) with kids under the age of 12, households who have taken vacations, bought non essential items, households who own or lease newer cars and households that do not have extreme debt or owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth.

It may sound, in this economy, like looking for a few needles in a haystack.,  but it will be worth it in the long run

Start with developing a product and offer that looks and feels more upscale. Full color fliers, Full color ads in local publications. Focus on corporate parties and fund raisers.

Here are  Six action steps you can do right now:

1. Develop a data base of people, (or buy lists) of higher net worth individuals.
2. Link to websites that  attract more upscale customers.  
3. Develop new products that will appeal more to Mid level and Higher corporate level people.  
4. Appeal to people at private clubs,
5. Appeal to charitable givers and people who raise money for theater, arts, museums. 
6. Appeal to their kids for cosmic bowling, birthday parties and school fund raisers.                                                                                                                                                                                             These people HAVE discretionary income.  And that is precisely who your NEW bowling customer should (and needs) to be!!