When you own a
company, when you sell products or services or have multiple outlets or brands,
you always have to think of the future.
Sure you have to run around and make
sure that today’s issues are addressed, that customers are happy and satisfied
and the people who work for you pumped up and firing on all cylinders, but you
also have to think about the future of your company, the future of your brand,
the future of your products and the future of your category. (entertainment,
recreation, show business…whatever you think.)
I wonder how much
time, we as individual proprietors or as the bowling industry really thinks
about the future. I know when I was with Brunswick or BCA, we developed 3 year
plans.
We had visions. We did research. We analyzed trends and then came to the
best conclusions we could on trying to forecast growth opportunities, product
opportunities and market opportunities where we could be a major player. It was
a lot more science than art and a lot more disciplined.
Does anybody do
that anymore?
I know the big
guys do. Brunswick just introduced a new bowling center concept. Bowling
Industry Magazine had a whole spread on it. It tilted the bowling center more
toward food and beverage and less toward bowling. I think they are right. And I
think we should watch the progress of that center and see how it does. My guess
is: it will do very well. They’re a bunch of smart folks at Brunswick.
But then again so
are we and we need to start examining the future as much as we worry about if
the bartender is coming in tonight. Here are just a couple of things to get your
creative juices going.
Oh, and in case
you need a reminder, remember the guy who put carpet rolls in the gutters for
kids so they wouldn’t get gutter balls. There was someone thinking about our
future and the beginning of a new product, called "bumpers".
1. What
is the future of open play? Cosmic bowling is a one tricks pony that’s been
around for 20 years. How can you evolve that product to make it more fun?
Anybody ever use "the baker system" during cosmic bowling? Could be fun, especially if every third person were blindfolded.
2. How
can you make league bowling more fun for the "less than competitive type of
bowler" who only wants to bowl 8 or 10 weeks? An 8 team league can bowl 2 frames
on one lane and then move to the next pair and for every pair you move you get
more or less points based upon the team score. No, I don’t know how to do that,
but I never let good marketing ideas get stopped by some operational issue.
3. Would
putting waiters and waitresses and porters on roller skates break the monotony
and be fun? Why not? I’ve been in some restaurants where all the employees
wear roller skates. It would certainly
improve “on the lane” service
4. Could
you have a comedian do a 5 minute gig after the 7th frame of a fun
league?
5. Could
you put hula hoops up around the lanes and spray them with day glow paint so people
can bowl under them during cosmic bowling?
After all, it was
Napoleon Hill, author of the world famous book, “Think and Grow Rich,” first published in 1937, selling over 15 million copies and published in over 100 countries who said” “What the mind can conceive, the mind can
achieve.”
So spend a little
time thinking about the future, it will be here before you know it.
