Comfort Food For Your Head

“Sometimes the last thing we want is really the first thing we need”.

I read this quote somewhere, but not sure where or who said it. In any case it got me to thinking about how comfortable we all sometimes get. The business is doing OK; its fairly predictable and, well, we even get bored now and then.

So to relieve that boredom we go looking for excitement; sometimes in the wrong places – food, clothes, cars, boats, 2^nd homes, more material stuff that satisfies us for a minute, but we rarely ever get to the fulfilling stuff that lasts and lasts.

For me, getting to fulfilling stuff takes human interaction and getting into other people's lives that are not as blessed as mine.  To make this happen, I have volunteered for organizations that give me “pain”.  In discomfort or tragedy, I found that I get my deepest satisfaction in helping others.  Maybe that’s why the role of “consultant” and “coach” wears well on my frame.

One of my most beloved charities is “Our Time Theatre”, an artistic home for kids who stutter.  Having struggled with this malady most of my life and having seen its devastating effects on young people’s self esteem, I was determined to do something about it so I volunteered for Our Time. 

The Our Time staff, nurtures kids through acting, song and writing.  Children become aware that their “voice” does matter no matter how long it takes them to say something.  The services of Our Time are absolutely FREE for these kids.

Pretty soon I was on the Board of Directors doing everything I could to help raise money for this cause.

And this month (October 22nd) we will be raising money by doing a Bowling Event with celebrities like Paul Rudd, Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order fame and Jesse L Martin too as well as 25 or 30 other TV and Broadway personalities.

The event will take place at Lucky Strike on 42^nd street in Manhattan NY and if you would like to support this cause, here is a link to the site. PLEASE give what you can. Every $5 or $10 helps another kid http://www.ourtimestutter.org/bowlingbenefit/

But here’s really why I am writing about this.   Your bowling center or family entertainment center is a wonderful place for fund raising for local or national causes. And I know you have done a bunch of them.

The problem is, your market probably doesn't know that you can help put “the fun in fundraising.” 

More importantly, by passionately and purposely doing fund raisers, your life, your business and your employees will feel more fulfilled. Morale will grow as will a sense of teamwork and of having a higher purpose. And the economic benefits will be more than you ever expected.

So get out of your comfort zone. Stop worrying about leagues and walk in open play and make a real effort to get fund raising events at your center.

Start with letters, emails, press releases, blogs and newsletters. Then make that follow up phone call  to invite the fund raising leader to see your center and to have you explain how EASY an event will be for him or her to do.

If you don’t already have a list of religious groups, organizations, schools and non profit organizations, call or visit Infousa.com and speak to someone about buying a list. The cost is anywhere from 25 cents to 40 cents per contact. Maybe less.

If you bought 500 contacts, your cost, at most, would be around $200.  It’s a good investment in a resource that you can use over and over; perhaps three or four times annually

As a bowling center operator, fund raising is probably the most rewarding thing you can do and is the place where you will find more out about yourself than you can ever imagine.

Do it today and you’ll feel better in the morning. J

Marketing Tip Of The Year

Imperfection is beauty.

Madness is genius.

It's better to be absolutely 

ridiculous than absolutely boring

Promise yourself: 

"My business will 

never be boring. 

   Never."

  And you will never be out of  business.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

My son, daughter in law and the two cutest grand children on the planet recently moved from Silver Spring, Maryland to Concord, Massachusetts.

While visiting with them and sharing breakfast in a place called Village Restaurant, my daughter in law mentioned how nice people were in Concord and how helpful. Specifically she mentioned that on one trip to the local Stop n Shop she requested that they carry a certain kind of fruit cup. “Three guys”, she said, “worked on it immediately” and told her that they will order it for her and “should have it in stock when she gets back next week from her trip.”  I was impressed.

Then she told me that when they lived in Maryland, she had asked the same question of the local supermarket and they people on duty just stared at her and said something like, “you’ll have to speak to the owner, mostly they just walked away,” she said.

My marketing mind went to work.

What made the difference between these two stores? Was it hiring the right people? Was it training? Was it empowering people to make a decision? Was it the culture of the organization that expected the customer to be delighted? Was it salary? Was it incentives?

Obviously, it was all of the above. 

But one thing stood out.  After she left the store in Concord, MA, she said, “the manager of the store called her on her cell phone and said he appreciated her input and would call her personally when the product came in.” 

The other store in Maryland didn't even bother to call and say they did not or could not get the product. 

Leadership will tell. Management will tell. If your staff is acting like they don’t care enough about the customer, take a look at how you’re treating the customer.  Then look again.

Once, one of my “former” clients said, “Fred this is a great business and I know I could make a lot of money at it… if it wasn’t for the customers!”   

You can’t make this stuff up.

Be A Brand Or Go Home

Robert Kyosaki, Author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, an All Star Best Seller once said, “If you’re not a brand, you’re a commodity.”

No doubt you’ve heard about branding. It’s the new old buzz word. We used to call it image. Same thing dressed up in the 21st century geek speak.

Do you have any idea what your customers or prospects think about you?  I’m not talking about “oh yeah, the bowling alley. It’s nice, friendly and food and beverage is pretty good. That’s like saying “all puppies are cute.”  Big deal.  

But are you the place to go to for fun with friends?  More importantly, is your center perceives as cool? Or sexy?  Or hot?  Or does it make the customer feel good or feel happy or whatever it is that the target audience wants from their entertainment dollar? 

Why don’t they say, “Oh that place. It is my kind of place. There is always something cool going on there and it’s so much fun.  They have bands, and DJs.  My friends and I love it. It is so cool and even my family goes and hangs there, (when I’m not there of course)".  LOL.

Think about it. What do you think about when I say Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Nordstroms, and Cheesecake Factory?

What does your customer think about you when they say your centers name?  What values have you been able to attach to your center that the consumer can feel good about.

If you’re NOT going to try and be a brand that consumers can clearly define, then get in line to follow the leader down the path of looking for the magic bullet another magic program that will get “everyone” to come in to your center.

Or you can keep pumping out those Facebook sales posts and email sell posts. Has it really helped your business?  Last I checked more centers were off in open play then were up in open play.

Could it be because open play programs are just getting boring, feel worn out and seemingly presented as another scoop of vanilla ice cream served up from a nondescript store.

Right now you are all commodities and that’s why they shop you like a commodity… so the customer just picks the center with the best special which really means cheapest price and that has an obvious consequence for all of us.

Moral of this rant: Be a “brand” or go home.

7 Point Rosh Hashanah Marketing Checklist

Monday (9.17) marks Rosh Hashanah, (pronounced rush-hahsh-un-uh) the Jewish new year celebration and the beginning of the Days of Awe –

Rosh Hashanah, literally the "head of the year" is considered the birthday of Adam and Eve (and the rest of creation) and just as it marks the creation of humanity, every year it offers an opportunity for a new era in one's personal life. 

To all our friends, we wish you the traditional blessing of a joyous and sweet new year filled with peace and prosperity.

We also encourage you to take some time today (Monday) and examine your business and how you have been marketing your business.

Here’s my 7 Point “Rosh Hashanah Marketing Checklist"

1.      Do you really know who your customer is and what motivates him to choose bowling vs. other activities he could be doing?

2.      If you or a member of your family received a promotional offer from your center would it motivate you or a family member to go bowling?  Really?  Why?

3.      Are you offering a good value; maybe even a great value for your prospect?  Would you think it was a good value if you hadn’t been bowling in over one year?

4.      Is your level of service consistently good?  What could you do to surprise your customer and make his experience something that would create multiple word of mouth mentions?

5.      Is your communication building relationships, engaging your customers, creating a dialogue and providing valuable information or are you just selling, selling and selling

6.      Are you targeting specific messages to specific segments?  Are the messages you send relevant to that segment?  How do you know?  Have you asked anyone?

7.      What creative ways could you sell open play besides “Price?”  C’mon, you can do it. Think.  Look at other industries!

Rosh Hashanah. A time to renew, reinvent, reinvigorate and reenergize. Please use the day wisely.

Here's How To Hire A "Computer Guy."

Social Media Marketing is a rapidly evolving practice. And to the extent it evolves, the more we sometime need help and assistance. 

Just recently, I have been receiving a bevy of calls from clients and proprietor friends asking me about what criteria they should use when hiring a "computer guy" to help them with their social media stuff.

So i thought i would get to a bunch of my resources and develop a quick criteria for you

When you go out to recruit a vendor, realize that while the capabilities of each are very similar,

the service element can vary wildly from vendor to vendor.

It pays to take extra time in the evaluation process to determine what kind of service the vendor “really” offers, and what you are getting with your particular package. Naturally, a “premium” package will usually offer more customer support. That can be a worthwhile investment.

Don’t hesitate to ask vendors for references to ascertain what the service and support experience is actually all about. And to the extent possible, it is extremely useful to find your own independent reference of someone who has used that particular SMM platform.

For each of the following criteria, ask yourself if the solution offered by the vendor you are speaking to address and answer that need.

Also on the left side of these questions write down: "Must Have" or "Like To have" next to the item. If you have to compromise, then compromise on the "likes", not on the "musts".

PAGE MANAGEMENT

q Comprehensive page design and publishing tools

q Publishing to multiple social properties and networks

q Pre-built, customizable page templates

q Ability to create custom templates that can be shared across the enterprise

q Ability to lock down template components to ensure consistent branding

q Flexibility to build fully custom pages from scratch

q Plug-ins for apps and pre-built engagement content (e.g., fan-gated contests, polls, quizzes, etc.)

q Real-time page performance tracking and analytics

MESSAGING MANAGEMENT

q Comprehensive messaging management tools

q Cascading permissions and work flow for message handling and publishing

q Message scheduling and automated posting

q Publishing of messages to multiple social properties and networks

q Unified social message inbox

q Keyword filtering and flagging (e.g., for profanity)

q Real-time message tracking and analytics

PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

q Comprehensive promotion publishing and management tools

q Pre-built promotion campaign templates optimized to drive entry and engagement

q Support for wide variety of promotion types (e.g., contests, coupons, sweepstakes, pick a favorite,

quizzes, trivia, etc.)

q Real-time promotion tracking and analytics

SOCIAL ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT

q Social advertising planning, purchasing, management, and optimization

q Automated multivariate testing of advertising creative content (i.e., thousands of ad variations)

q Ability to optimize ad cost, clicks, and post-click engagement

q Advertising across multiple social networks

q Real-time ad performance tracking and analytics, including post-click engagement activity

SOCIAL DATA MANAGEMENT

q Capture and aggregation of consumer social data in a unified repository

q Retrieval of complete history of consumer interactions on brand Facebook wall

q Custom segmentation of social audience data

q Analysis of consumer interests

q Targeting based on consumer interests

MOBILE SUPPORT

q Native support for mobile content and devices

q Auto-optimized content for any display (design content once and deploy to any device)

You may very well have more criteria or want to modify this list, but use it as a start when hiring a vendor.

And as always, if you have a question or need  some information, don't hesitate to call me @ 516 359 4874

7 Types Of People You Never Want To Hire

One of my favorite bloggers is a consultant and partner at  Invisor Consulting http://www.invisor.net/ named Steve Tobak. 

As you climb into the new season and begin hiring more people, I thought this article would bve beneficial for you.  Hope you like it

Its from MoneyWatch COMMENTARY Every incompetent employee, lunatic boss and deceitful salesperson is someone's loving spouse and loyal friend. That does not mean you should hire, work for, trust or do business with them. And yet, we do exactly that, time and again.

Sometimes we get taken; it happens to everyone. But other times we ignore all sorts of red flags. We act against our better judgment.

But why? I mean, why would you or anyone make a ridiculously important decision "against your better judgment?" Because, at that moment, you choose to believe that pigs can fly. That miracles do happen. That universal laws don't apply to you because you're special.

You choose hopes and dreams over reason and instinct.

Well, here's the thing. Pigs can't fly, miracles don't happen, the laws of physics do apply to you and hope is always a dumb strategy. Instead of hopes and dreams, learn to listen to your better judgment, trust your instincts, and keep these seven types of people out of your business.

Trendy self-promoters. There are tons of self-proclaimed entrepreneurs branding themselves as Gen Y consultants, personal branding experts, or both. They're experts all right -- at branding themselves and making money off a trendy stereotype or label.

Salespeople who know their product doesn't work. Everyone on Wall Street knows that past performance is no indicator of future results and active money management doesn't outperform the broad market. And yet, money managers make fortunes selling products they know don't work. How do they sleep at night?

Bottom feeders. When bubbles burst, economies go south and once-thriving industries dry up, enterprising people find other ways to make a living. The worse the economy gets, the more life and career coaches there are. Imagine that. Look, if you need help, find someone who was actually successful at what you want to become.

Anyone calling himself a guru. You know why accomplished people don't think of themselves as experts, let alone call themselves gurus? Because they're smart enough to know better. Competent people are confident, not deluded.

Needy, bottomless pits. Social networks now make it possible for anyone with a computer and an IP address to try to rope you into their endless life drama or whacko agenda. It never starts out that way, but it inevitably ends up as a bottomless pit of attention-getting need.

Narcissistic charmers. Some people are so small and weak inside that they have to build their own egos up so they don't have to face how they really feel. They're very good at making you feel special just to be in their presence. But it's all a facade. And get this. Some of them manage to con their way into high-level positions. No kidding.

Slippery yes men. The world is full of people who will say or do anything to gain your confidence or get into your inner circle. You could be heading for disaster, but they'll find a way to sugarcoat it and blow smoke up your you-know-what. Don't even try to hold them accountable; it's like shooting darts at Jello.

Just remember, these are not all bottom feeders you can spot in an instant and steer clear of with ease. Lots of them are highly successful and very wealthy. Some are even senior executives and business leaders. So stay on your toes -- it's a jungle out there.