Anxiety Kills

Somebody sent me a quote I liked. It appealed to my sense of always trying to understand human nature and the "purchasing dynamics" of the human species.

Here is the quote:

"Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste."

I would imagine that is how many of us feel when we buy products or services from places we have actually had bad experiences. Or it is how we feel when we have heard about bad experiences that friends and family members have had at different stores or whole groups of stores. Imagine what anxiety you might feel about buying a car, or a used car, or home improvements or certain restaurants (that's why they are not there any more).

People will simply stop buying from a store, outlet, auto dealership or repair shop if it creates too much anxiety and causes them to think they will have that bad experience.

Once you lose that trust; once you fail to perform; once you cause the customer to experience failure, you have a slim chance of getting that customer back. Very slim.

To avoid customer anxiety at your bowling center, watch them as they come to the service desk, when they buy their "games" or "packages." Watch them as they begin looking for their bowling balls and then how they bowl. Watch their faces as they bite into your food or drink your beverages. Watch them as they go in or come out of the bathroom.

Pretty soon, you will be able to tell where the anxiety can bubble up. Your job is like Walt Disney once said about cleaning windows in his employee manual, "there will be no dirty windows."

Your job is to write an employee training guide that simply says, "there will be no anxiety amongst our customers."

To diminish if not eliminate the anxiety level in your center; here are eight tips to get you started on eliminating customer anxiety.

1. Welcome every customer,ask then if it is their first time and thank them for coming to your establishment. Then thank them again.

2. Make sure you tell them what your best bowling value is right then and there.

3. Direct them to the color codes of house balls.
Make up a small printed sheet with the colors of your house ball weights on them and give it to them so they can more easily select their bowling balls.

4. Ask if they have used the automatic scorers before.
If not, either give them instructions OR, if time permits, go down there (or send someone down there)to do it for them.

5. Tell them where the restrooms and food and beverage areas are located.
If you have the technology to do it; offer them a quickie menu about 6 to 8 items and ask them if they want to order right then and there; you'll shoot an electronic message to the kitchen and the waitress will bring it down in less than X# of minutes.

6. Sometime during the course of the evening,
you or someone else stop by the lanes, ask them how they are doing; if you can assist them with anything or get them anything. Again thank them for coming.

7. When they leave, and you thank them for coming,
ask them to fill out a customer data base card and you'll send them (via email) a $5 in bowling bucks which can be used next time at your center.

8. Do you and your customer a favor,
make sure everything is prepaid; hopefully to include bowling, shoe rental and a food item. There is nothing like the sheer terror of buying something and not knowing what the bill will be until AFTER YOU HAVE ALREADY CONSUMED IT!

What other ways can you eliminate customer anxiety?

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Facebook now gets 30 billion monthly page-views and has 400 million viewers. Facebook has more page views than Google. And Google is worried. That's because Facebook advertising is easier to use, more effective, costs less and is not subject to the "logarithmic changes " that Google makes every so often...just to shake up the search engines.

Imagine, Google afraid of Facebook?

That's like the movies being afraid when TV arrived. Then, television being afraid of the movies because the movies put air conditioning in the theaters. And then television being afraid of "home movies" and then movies being afraid of all the digital channels that television added. Then television being afraid of TIVO, which dials out the commercials. And movies being afraid of television because people can now sit home and watch today's TV without commercials.

Its called competition. And it makes us better.

Because if we didn't have competition, we would probably get complacent and our products and services would dumb down to the lowest common denominator... just ripe for a new competitor to swoop in and quickly take our market share.

Now, what would you do if Disney built a bowling center in your back yard?
What would you do to make them "afraid" of you?

Why wait until a new competitor arrives?
Why not make a perspective competitor VERY afraid right now?

Who Changed the Game?

As the old saying goes, the scenery only changes for the lead dog. But what if the very basic game that you have been playing changes. In other words, what would happen if some NEW invention improved the product experience of what you are selling and made what you were selling "a lesser experience?"

Imagine that you are Barnes and Noble or Borders.

Now imagine that someone like Amazon invents an electronic book called "the Kindle." The Kindle is a neat little invention no bigger than the size of a paper back book, but about 1/2 inch thick. Now, imagine with a click of a button, consumers, who bought that product, could just download any book they wanted...within 15 seconds. Now, imagine that this little device could hold 15,000 books?

What would you do if you were the CEO of Barnes and Noble Booksellers Inc? Would you try to make a deal with Kindle to provide them with a data base of your book buyers so you could get fees for all the books they could sell to your list? Would you try and invent a "better Kindle?" Or would you try to find a unique niche market that still liked the paperback book and hard cover book experience? Maybe you would become Barnes and Noble, a retail seller of greeting cards, audio CD's (although that business is gong away) or would you become a sanctuary where people could come, read their books, plug in their computers and have a latte?

These questions could become equally relevant for bowling? In fact, when the open play trend ramped up, many proprietors jumped on the band wagon and started to delete bowling leagues from their product offerings.

Some are sorry they did that. Others are very happy they did that. Still others saw the opportunity to enter the industry and build boutiques, FEC's or convert some lanes to "private party areas".

Not many of these folks are sorry. I can site many a client who has opened a new FEC or Boutique bowling center and is one happy camper. Game changer.

Think it only happens to the techy guys? How about automobiles? How about typewriters? How about pencils? Or bowling score sheets?

Point is you have to keep your eyes wide open for the next game changing product because it could effect your business over night. And poof, you're a buggy whip.

Better to be eyes wide open than eyes wide shut.

Connectivity vs. Individuality

The overwhelming dichotomy of our society is that, on one hand we have this immense need for connectivity; that being the need to twitter, facebook, text, email and even phone someone just to say "Hi what are you doing?" On the other hand, we work so hard to be different(like every one else) and establish our individuality that we sometimes are annoyed if another person "groups us or stereotypes us.

It is the balance of this tension, this see saw of a rhythmic marketing pulse that we have to bear in mind whenever we create strategies. Keeping a steady pulse between connectivity and individuality has never been more demonstrative than in the new age of "Millennium Moms"; those women born between 1977 and 1986. These 40 million women, as big as the baby boomer generation of 1946 to 1964, are the key to your next parent child league, your next youth program and even your next new mixed league.

What do you know about her?

Did you know that Millennium Moms...

Adopt technology that allows them to manage home life more efficiently. Their primary objective in utilizing technology is for scheduling and to stay in touch with their busy families. In fact, 65% of moms utilize five or more separate technologies each day including video, blogs and wireless devices to multi-task

Turn to social networks, blogs and forums to access new support systems to help them raise their children instead of looking for “expert” books and advice that promote a singular way of thinking.

Usage patterns are a major driving force for why women’s online communities are the most visited and fastest growing internet category.

For 4 out of 10 (44%)use social media for word-of-mouth recommendations on products. 73% feel they find trustworthy information about products and services through online communities.

Bottom line: get to these Moms on line via local Moms groups. Do you know a local Mom who believes in your product and loves your center to talk about it on line?

You must be authentic, relevant and provide information that pertains to their job as MOM!

The email stop's here.

United Breaks My Guitar

Want to know the real power of the internet?

Here is a perfect example. This one video was seen by over 7,000,000 million people. Seven million! It was brought to my attention by Bart Burger of Brunswick who, during one of his recent presentations at a Brunswick showcase, demonstrated some interesting social media statistics.

http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/ubg/song1/

Paste this into your browser. Look to the left side of the page, click on VIDEO 1 and get ready for an amazing story. It's about how United Airlines broke Dave Carroll's guitar and in their stumbling, bumbling bureaucratic way was unable and unwilling to fix it. In the interim, it gave Dave's career a jump start...and ingratiated him to millions of people

Now they have seven million people who saw how inflexible they are.

What do you think that cost them in lost sales? And after you see it, do you think you just might pick another airline for your next travel experience?

It's the same thing in our entertainment centers.

The customer doesn't care who is right or who is wrong. Please don't let one damaged bowling ball or one bad birthday party put your center on You Tube.

Just do the right thing and fix the damn problem.

Target Practice

It’s an early Friday morning...and I find myself taking a train to visit a client in New England. The Acela train whisks me thru the Northeast corridor at 150mph amidst a blanket of white; our first real snowstorm, some 12 inches of the white stuff having fallen so far.

As I sit and gaze out the window, I am also watching my fellow passengers, many older dudes sitting and staring at the pure whiteness of the moment, listening to their Ipods and strumming their air guitars. It is absolutely great to see. Guys buttoned up to the top, their wingtips shining, blue suits glistening and their stainless steel bracelet watches with the black face shining, digging some music and “chillin”. What are they listening to? Maybe its from Lady Gaga or the Black Eyed Peas or the Beach Boys or Bruce Springsteen or ZZTop. Maybe even a little Mozart or John Coltrane. Or Taylor Swift. Who really knows?

Not only are they listening to their music, many are working on their laptops, as am I, talking on the phone and playing solitaire. What a great time we live in! What great communication options we have. We just have to learn how to use the NEW tools or we will get left out in the wood shed with a Remington electric typewriter and no carbon paper!

So with that in mind, I want to pass along a communications tip to help you reach your target audiences with your message VERY efficiently. It’s a Facebook tip. Do you know how to place a facebook ad for your center? If you don’t, please read on. Well, first you need a facebook page for your center. Ok, go to Google, plug in facebook and set up your page. Got it? Cool.

Once you get that done, go back to Google and plug in facebook.com/ads. It will take you to a page where you can absolutely target any demographic group you want in any city you want. Plug in the key words “bowling”, your city or suburb or multiple cities. You can even experiment and plug in league bowling (if that’s your message) or cosmic bowling, if that’s your message. Or whatever message you want. The broader you make the key words, the more eyeballs will see the message. The narrower the target, the fewer eyeballs.

At the bottom of the page you can select married, male female, none of the above or single. Experiment with your target, because after you complete that task, Google will tell you how many facebook people in your city, within your target demographic will see this advertisement. All for $50 a day plus a pay per click (.25 to .75 cents). If it sounds expensive, think again. You are getting a measurable, definable audience that is highly targeted for your message. And you don’t have to do it for a long time. Maybe 5 to 7 days. Maybe 10 days. The beauty of this stuff is that you can test it and change it up…and get results in a heart beat. Once the respondent sees your ad, he or she will click on it and be automatically directed to your “landing page.” Drop me an email or text me @ 516 359 4874 if you need some assistance with setting this page up.

Go for it…and rock on!

Profitability

Some business owners lead their team in the wrong direction. Other leaders lead their team in any direction. Both of these types of leaders are wrong.

Similarly, some proprietors believe that the only way to greater profitability is to turn the microscope on every single cost. They're so busy picking up dimes, that they step over dollars at every turn. Then there are those proprietors that focus only on getting new business; whether it be from the center down the street or from a consistent .99 cent bowling price.

What is the right way? Is there a right way?

Logic would say that you need a combination of both controlling expenses AND
increasing sales.

My logic says that if you consistently do the unexpected, become an amazing remarkable seller of bowling, you'll figure out the costs.

And the profitability will follow.