Are You Getting Your Share?

In recent months, I have had the opportunity to work with “The Millennium Theatre”, a 1400 seat venue, in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, a predominantly Russian community, frequently referred to as “Little Odessa.”  Over 100,000 Russians call Brighton Beach their home and for years, “The Millennium Theatre” catered to the needs of this community by promoting Russian singers, actors, dancers, comedians and circus acts who appeared on their playbills. 

But times have changed and the Russian community in Brighton Beach is getting older while younger Russians are moving out, either to the suburbs or to other parts of the city.

And that called for a change in strategy. No longer could the Millennium just book Russian acts and expect sold out crowds.

Now it had to broaden its base and appeal to other audiences around the community such as the young and affluent Park Slope singles and young parents segment, the Orthodox Jewish segment, the African American segment and create product that would appeal to these NEW market segments. 

The Millennium's first foray into this new world was a Circus show around the holidays featuring Chinese acrobats, Ukrainian jugglers, American dancers,  international trained dog acts, and all of the things you would expect from a circus. Its first foray was a difficult one, but it did stimulate press coverage and the understanding that the “Millennium” was no longer JUST a Russian Theatre. 

Now new acts are planned for the Millennium. New markets are being targeted.  A new energy is building and  acts, who never would have considered The Millennium as a place “to play”, are calling to find out if the theatre is available for comedy shows, amateur nights, American plays, concerts and off-off Broadway shows. 

Now if we as bowling proprietors can identify new markets, perhaps we can see our business grow as well. 

Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing communities in the country. Yet, I have rarely seen any marketing, communications or programming targeting this group. Similarly, I haven’t seen, with the exception of proprietors in Southern California and Texas, the same marketing effort against Mexican Americans or other Hispanic groups. Why not? 

It’s a new world with new marketing opportunities.  

Are you getting your share of these emerging and fast growing segments?

Focus Your Priorities

I read a recent quote from Maggie Fox, CEO of  Social Media, a Toronto based company that handles social media for large businesses. It goes something like this:

"If you have more than three priorities, then you have no priorities."

To better manage your time, why not write down just three goals for the day. Just three.

And try to accomplish those.

So often we set ourselves up for failure because we have a hundred things on our to do list. That's OK, but focus on three. Three priorities. You'll get more done and feel more satisfied.

To help set  priorities for my clients, I try to focus them on establishing three columns on a yellow legal pad. each column has these titles.

1. What can you do today to attract new business?
2. What can you do today to get  customers to return?
3. What can you do today to get customers to spend more when they come into the center?

I then ask them to list tasks under each column and then to put numbers next to each to establish priorities.

Try it. You'll like it.

Our One Trick Pony Is Out of Tricks. Now What?

According to the latest Nielsen reports, Americans spent an average of 33 hours per week watching TV and about 17 hours on the Internet.  In many cases, these activities were done simultaneously.

With our industry's infatuation with all things "Internet", we have largely ignored one of the popular mediums available to us to get our message out.

The reasons for this are many, but here are a few, "it costs too much", "can't measure it," and "don't know enough about TV busying to feel comfortable doing it." Couple these reasons with the omni present reason of  "tired it and it didn't work" and you have an industry, for millions of potential customers that remains invisible.

And invisibility creates empty bowling centers.

So instead of using cable TV or radio, proprietors are pounding their data base with price off promotions and other "coupons" to get consumers to go bowling.

Yet open play across the country is STILL down.  Given that less than 15% of consumers open their email, it is no wonder. Our one trick pony may have run out of tricks.

Maybe, instead of each of us working our data base dry, we got together in our local markets and developed a multi media campaign that included TV (or radio as well as Internet marketing and direct mail) we could collectively get to where we want to go.

With gas prices projected to go to $5 a gallon, isn't it time a group of local proprietors talked about bowling's benefits of being a "close to home affordable entertainment value" and then demonstrated it with specific offers that would be relevant for each of our important segments.

It would then be up to each proprietor to implement his/her own efforts in regards to Internet marketing, outside sales and inside sales?

Isn't it time we worked together and developed this type of effort?  Maybe the BPAA could help subsidize it?

Why not do it? What do you have to lose?

Nothing else is working.

If there is a group of proprietors out there interested in developing this type of approach, you got me for a free teleconference strategy session and to act as your guide.

Yup, I have been doing this for over 30 years so I know a little bit about integrated media campaigns.                     914 592 2836 (office) or email me at fredkaplowitz@gmail.com 

Every Question You Ask Is Expensive

The good news is I have been receiving questions from more proprietors interested in finding out how to get more information about their customers. I frequently refer them to http://www.surveymonkey.com which is an on line research company that helps you to send, manage and analyze the results of a questionnaire to your data base.

The bad news is that "questionnaire writing and market research analysis" didn't usually come with the job description for a bowling proprietor.

So in this short post, here are 4 Tips for Writing a Questionnaire

1.       Every question you ask is expensive. (Expensive in terms of loyalty and goodwill). Don't ask a question unless you truly care about the answer. This means that a vague question with vague answers (extremely satisfied...acceptable...extremely dissatisfied and no scale to compare them to) is a total waste of time. What action will you take based on that? It's smarter to ask, "how much would you say lunch was worth?"

2.       Every question you ask changes the way your users think. If you ask, "which did you hate more..." then you've planted a seed.

3.      Make it easy for the user to bail. If you have 20 questions (that's a lot!) make it easy to quit after five and have those answers still count. If you waste my time and then don't count my answers, see #2

4.      Make the questions entertaining and not so serious, at least some of them. Boring surveys deserve the boring results they generate.    Don't be afraid to shake up the format. Instead of saying, "Here are ten things, rank them all on a scale of one to five..." why not let people compare things?  "We had two speakers, Bob and Ray. Who was better?

For more information on this, give me a jingle at 516 359 4874

Revolutionizing The Pefect

I read a quote the other day that went something like this, “revolution is the replacement of the seemingly perfect by the seemingly impossible.”

The record business was almost the perfect business, new records, new artists, and new sales; seemed like it could go on forever.

Then digital hit and the perfect business became revolutionized never to be that perfect again.

Once upon a time, the bowling business was the perfect business, a product that appealed to every demographic segment in urban and suburban areas across the country and around the world. 

Then competition happened. Disney land happened. Entertainment options happened, restaurants happened, affordable travel happened and we made barely a move, still clinging to our once perfect business.

Oh, we created automatic scoring, and a few other doodads, but we haven’t stretched yet to create the seemingly impossible. 

Not nearly as far as we can.  Not even close.

That’s up to you.

The Difference Between "The Wills" and "The Will Nots"

I have been on a bit of a rant lately as it pertains to customer service. maybe its because I see so much bad service in my travels that I am often astounded when I get good service. 


Some people say that today's employees just don't care; that they don't make enough to put up with customer abuse, anger and frustration so they do as little as possible.  Others say it is lack of training. These so called bad employees have never been trained or have been poorly trained to handle the rigors of retail outlets.


And while much has been written about the 99% vs the 1%, I think its not about the haves and have nots, its about "the wills" and "will nots."


We hire employees and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't.  For every employee I have hired and had to fire, I blame me. I failed. Failed to hire the right person, failed to train the person and failed to monitor that person's progress.


It wasn't until I found out that the person I hired was a "will not" person.  they will not work at what they were hired, will not go the extra mile and will not learn from their mistakes.


But I finally cured that.  Now i try to hire athletes. It worked for Tom Landry, the legendary coach of the Dallas Cowboys. He hired Bobby Hayes, at the time the fastest human on the planet - did 9.2 seconds in a 100 yard dash, and then trained him to catch footballs.


Bobby Hayes had a "will" personality. he will learn, he will be trained. He will listen. He will learn from his mistakes and he will want to be the best he can be.
So the moral of today's story. Look for "Will" personalities. People who will achieve and have demonstrated it before. People who will learn and have demonstrated it before. People who will fail and pick themselves up and promise to do it better next time and have demonstrated it before.


Start with some of the people on the local high school or college athletic teams.  They wouldn't be playing sports if they didn't want to win.


They have the WILL to win.


And I imagine so do you.

Stupid John, The Customer Service Nightmare Maker

So there I was knee deep in mud, trying to get my SAAB away from the tree that it decided to visit into when I thought I better call a tow truck operator. Alex’s Towing was recommended by a bunch of people here in Elmsford, NY so I called the place and they sent someone out to separate the two love birds.

The next day when I called the company and said I would like them to take my SAAB to SAAB hospital in Manhattan and all I had was $150 in insurance towing, the employee, John, but I prefer "Stupid John", answered with, “No I can’t do it for that, no way. 

“Ok”, I said, “I would like to keep the business local, can we make a deal”. Gruffly, he said, “No deal. That’s the price. Take it or leave it”.

I think I will leave it I thought. “Ok”, I said, “I will come and pay you the $80 this morning and make arrangements to have the car towed by another company”. 

“Hey” he said, “who told you $80, that ain’t the price”.  “Your employee who towed it”, I said. “He can’t tell you nuthin'. He’s an idiot and he’s not all there.” 

Nice, I thought. Who wouldn’t want to work for you? Heck, I’ll bet you have a lineup of people just waiting to work for you, JERK!

After making arrangements with my insurance company to have the SAAB towed by another operator I called John and told him I would meet him and pay him.

“OK, c’mon over” as he slammed the phone down. Of course I go to the yard and there is no John.  I call him and tell him I am at the yard and he says, “Well I am at the office”.  “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” I say.  “Whatever, you comin’ or not?”  “Oh I’ll be there”, I said.  

Of course when I get to the office he is on the phone, not even acknowledging me and ignoring me for about 5 minutes. When he finally gets off he says, “You here to pay for the SAAB”.

No I came to discuss Advanced Calculus with you, I thought. “Yes” I say. “Ok, says he, “$85 bucks ($5 more than his “idiot” quoted) and that’s cash only".  

What no credit card or even check?  “Thanks for making it easy to do business with you”, I say.  His sneer, coupled with his tattoos made me feel that this was just a bad guy having a bad day and maybe I should just walk away.

Nah! Not my style.  


So I said I would meet him at the yard when my tow truck showed up in 15 minutes. 15 minutes later when my tow truck arrived, there was no John.  

Again I called him and he said he would be there in 10 minutes. 20 minutes later he showed up, jumped out of his car and went for his flat bed which he cranked up and conveniently parked in the entrance of the yard to make it difficult for my tow truck driver to get in.

When I finally got my car safely on the flat bed and out of the yard, I walked up to him, got real close to him and said, “I want to thank you for a wonderful customer experience and in fact I am going to tell as many people as I can about how wonderful this was”. 


In typical stupid John fashion, he shrugged, put on his sunglasses and drove away.

I will send this letter to the owner. Everyone says he is a decent guy, been around for 20 years and treats everyone fairly.  But he should know what a disservice this employee is doing to his business and much he is undermining 20 years of good will.  

What would you do if you got a letter like this from me about one of your employees?  Would you respond? Would you refund my money or would you just  ask John his side of the story, believe him and do nothing?

Seriously, what would you do?


I will keep you posted if I get a response :)


p.s.  Received two nice comments from Ken Paton on my blog about social marketing and from C.J. Fox about telling it like it is on birthday parties