What Are You Going To Do To Increase sales This Month?

Answers I have received from proprietors around the country range from:

1.      “Not much, it’s the summer; you can’t get em to bowl even if you give it away.”

2.      “I’m going to work my butt off to build relationships with fundraising groups, companies, day cares, day camps and build my ‘kids bowl free program’ so I can prepare for fall starting in June.”

3.      “I’ll try to build some short season leagues and runs some price specials…like I have in the past, but I don’t expect much.”

4.      “Are you kidding? I’m closing 4 days a week.”

5.      “Going to work on my social media and get it up to snuff so I’ll be better able to communicate with my various target audiences.”

6.      “I guess the same as I have always done.”

If you identify with any of these statements, I hope it is either #2 or #5. Any other statement in the above is not very bold and in this day and age, you need to be bold, you need to be wiser and you need to not have fear of failure.

I always used to look at summer, and still do, as a time to experiment, to try new ideas, to go after different targets with different products and to see if there were any motivational buttons that I could tap into and at worse learn from.

Many years ago, I tried a gift certificate program for Moms. Each Mom would get a $50 portrait gift certificate to a Sears store for a family portrait/photo shoot by a professional photographer. 

The idea bombed…in the summer.  

But the feedback we got was great so when October came, I rolled out a Christmas Portrait League, ready for Christmas cards or gift giving.

Boom!!  Home run.

The product and target were right, but the timing was off.

So now I ask you what are you going to do to increase sales this month?

What kinds of programs can you try this summer to learn from and build more meaningful programs in the fall?

Here are five ideas to get yo started thinking.:

1.      Maybe work on your social media and build your brand. Build your brand by showing the culture of your center, the staff, the owners, explain what your values are and how much you are involved with the community.

2.      Learn how to do split testing of offers where one part of your list gets offer #1 and the second part of the list gets offer #2. Then test the winning offer against a 3rd offer.

3.      Start one new short season league in mid June either targeted to adult child or families

4.      Introduce one new twist to your cosmic bowling. Whether it is a free pizza when 5 people show up (on ONE specific weekend) or a chance to win a $50 gift card to Best Buy for anyone who comes to Cosmic Bowling on ONE specific weekend. Send these emails out Thursday night for the Friday and Saturday night sessions

5.      Host a FREE Company party event and invite companies in to bowl for free after work, and then make sure you have a 4 to 8 week “league of their own” program ready to offer them. Maybe every other week.

…Or anything else you feel like. Just don’t sit on your apathy all summer. 

And besides, golf really isn't that much fun.  As mark Twain once said, “Golf is an activity that’ spoils a perfectly good walk in the park.”J

Every Picture Tells A story

I love the emails I get that have a subject line like “You have been chosen to gain access to $2407 per day software.”  Most people are wise to these deals and skip over them, but a few will open them; me being one of them. Why?  Because i like to examine and analyze the simplicity, almost genius, of the systematic selling process they propose.  We should all be as good as these “digital marketers” in getting people to convert to “SALES.”

First, they have a catchy headline that gets a certain percentage of the people into it, at least to click to open it.

Second, they start with a story about how HE, the pitchman, grew up eating used snicker candy bar wrappers for breakfast, sleeping in a shopping cart under the bridge and finally magically and mysteriously meets someone, “the angel” who helped turn his life around.  Now I’m all for angels and miracles and that sort of thing, but where does a homeless guy living under the bridge meet a multi millionaire software Internet marketing guru? OK, I’ll let that pass.

Third, the angel teaches him his Internet marketing tricks and gives him his secret software, “the recipe” which helps make the homeless guy rich; cut and fade away to pictures of his mansion, swimming pool, Maserati and vacation homes with a happy smiling family.  

Now don’t you want that, you know the picture he methodically and painstakingly painted? 

Of course you do and HE wants to give it to you for the ridiculously low price of $97!!

Fourth, so you click on the offer and you buy it, wishing and hoping that this $97 purchase will turn you into a millionaire.

Fifth, when you buy the software, HE comes back on and says, ya know this software is good, but if you buy my upgrade for just $125, you’ll make money faster. Click you’re in.

Sixth, now for the next upgrade, HE then offers you a turbo boost, rocket propelled, jet fueled way to make it happen almost instantly. Click, you do it again.

And finally you look at your bill, you just dropped over $490 on this yet to be seen, and proven software.

All this with 100% money back guarantee. Sold. Closed. You’re all in.

Moments later the software arrives and you dig in. From here its any body’s guess. Will this work?  Won’t it work?  Who knows? No doubt the 7 people who gave you testimonials swore that it changed their life forever.  and you want to be number 8.

But all this is irrelevant because you bought it. You bought the story. You bought the dream; the eternal promise of happiness. 

Now maybe bowling can’t deliver a “total lifetime” dream of happiness and massive wealth so you'll never worry about money again, but it can deliver wholesome family fun, entertainment, escape, achievement, teamwork and many other good things - we all speak about, but rarely communicate to our prospects and customers- all at a relatively affordable price.

Where is your promise to customers and prospects? All I see are price specials? What “dream” are you trying to get them to believe in that you can actually deliver? 

Because if you don’t have a story and a passionate promise; you don’t have even a tiny share of today’s customers’ hearts and minds.

Where Have You Been and What Did You Learn?

While fighting some age old back problems this week, and getting PT and Acupuncture treatments, my travels found me in the, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southern regions of the country, and speaking to not only my clients, but other proprietors as well (in short 2 to 3 hour seminars), I wanted to report back to you on some of their perceptions and realizations about the current state of their business and how they are marketing it.

1.           Summer league bowling is experiencing its typical “up a little, down a little and even” responses to the question of “how is business?” The "good guys" are experiencing "up" because they began planning their summer in FEBRUARY!!

2.          March open play was strong almost everywhere with weekends being strongest (Yay for cold and wet weather). but yay for some of the proprietors who found double digit increases in some old school cable TV advertising. Incidentally, for those of you who pooh pooh cable TV, US companies spent $61 billion on cable TV advertising last year and $4.1 billion on digital advertising so cable "ain't going away any time soon."

3.          Smart proprietors are feeling more confident about the economy and raising their summer league prices so when their fall league bowlers come back and ask, “when did you raise prices?", they can answer, “in the summer.”

4.          More proprietors are experimenting with and running Saturday night bands, some using the Profit Platform and charging $20 a person, $5 of which goes to the band.

5.          Proprietors who are using "on line reservation systems" for birthdays and corporate parties are showing double digit increases in both categories of bookings vs. the same period last year and even to the periods before they put the systems in place.

6.           More proprietors are using hourly pricing than ever before and finding greater acceptability of the strategy as people come to realize greater values than $4.50 to $5.00 game pricing which many consumers cannot get their heads into.

7.          Proprietors are actively seeking new ways to communicate their message and starting to realize that they have significantly beat up emails and Facebook postings as a communication tool; too many opt outs and too many unopened emails…less than 12% of all email blasts are now being opened.  That’s why you need to segment your offers against the target in order to get more opens. The more relevant the message to the recipient, the more likely it is to get greater opens and greater click throughs.

8.          Using a landing page to rive people from your email to get the information is finally starting to be understood.

9.          Shorter season summer leagues 6 to 10 weeks are being planned for a “2^nd season summer” starting in mid to late June.

10.           Kids Bowl Free centers are experiencing a greater rate of sign ups than last year which was over 2 million kids. 

And here's a bonus tip.

11.           Don’t confuse taking a pain killer pill with an aspirin or you will fall asleep at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike for almost two hours. :)

Have a great weekend.

Customer Service Story # 22

So there I was stuck in traffic in Manhattan in the middle of rush hour when the three cups of coffee and two diet cokes I consumed at the meeting decided that it was time to loosen its grip on me.

With nature calling, I stoically looked around for a bathroom and a place to park. I knew if I could park, put the flashers on and walk into a neighborhood bar and just keep going to the back, I would find a bathroom and all would be well once again.

As the fates would have it, I turned up the next street found a spot, turned on the flashers, ran out of the car, headed into “Un-named Bar” and headed to the back. I found it. Relief at last; pulling at the door, to my chagrin, it didn't open. When I looked up I saw this sign on the men’s bathroom stall.

ARE YOU F&^%$#G kidding me I said to the owner who basically told me to take a hike or pay up.

Running out, I found another place and after some considerable thought about the first place decided that instead of naming it, I would report him to whatever bureaucracy I could find to listen to me.

Nevertheless, I will come back again with a bunch of my friends and buy a few beers and we all will use his bathroom.  Oh yeah, we’ll use it like it has never been used before…if you know what I mean.

Fred's 5 Step Approach to Getting More Customers

If you really want to figure out what to do to motivate someone to buy bowling, read about “Fred’s 5 Step Approach to Getting More Customers.” 

This is a much abbreviated version, since what we do for our clients is a lot more elaborate than this, involves more testing,  reconfiguration and  tweaking copy points and headlines… but it is the essence of what we do.

Step One: Decide Who It Is You Are Talking To and What You Want Them To Do?

1.      Someone who hasn't bowled in 5 years or more

2.      Someone who bowls maybe once or twice a year

3.      Someone who bowls 3 + times a year

4.      Someone who “usta bowl” at your center last year or two years ago in a league

5.      Any other segments you might be able to define?

6.      NOTE: decide on age, gender, when they prefer to bowl and what they have bought in the past and if 

      what you will be offering them is in line with their values and beliefs.

Step Two: Decide What Is Pleasurable About the Bowling Experience (to the person you will be talking to?)

1.      Can be with friends and family, we can talk – not like a movie

2.      Affordable fun with kids, friends, whom ever -

3.      Good for a weekend date

4.      Something different to do

5.      Music n bowling is cool. Sound system is awesome and they play MY requests

6.      Great for kids birthdays – easy to do and not very expensive; doesn't mess up my house

7.      Company parties – if food is good and service is good and place isn't a throwback to old bowling alley

      stereotype

8.      I like the friendly competition

9.      Like to compete against my best score

10. Would be more fun with more people – a bigger group of like 8 to 10 people

11. Food is better than expected – actually better than a “Friday’s

12. Not weather dependent, can do it rain or shine

13. Makes me smile to see my kids having so much fun

Step Three:  Decide What Is Painful About Bowling (to the person you will be talking to?)

1.      People curse and swear near my kids

2.      People not like me, they’re rednecks and rowdy

3.      Place is always filthy and bathrooms look like a toxic waste dump

4.      Food just sucks and is over priced

5.      Drinks are expensive and watered down

6.      Nobody on the staff seems happy; why would I want to go there?

7.      The whole experience is too expensive and I have other choices than going there

8.      Bowling balls and shoes are old and trashy; I hate wearing someone else’s bowling shoes and if they’re 

      OK  why do they disinfect them?

9.      Music system and light system is a “D.” My Walkman works better than their sound system

10.  Not in a safe part of town anymore

11.  Nobody I know bowls

12.  Can only bowl after 9pm on weekdays and that’s too late; have to get up early

13.  I’ll never get better at this and I don’t want to take lessons and buy a ball, shoes and all that stuff – I’m 

      just not good at it, so why should I do it?

Step Four: Write a Description of the Person You Are Going To Be Talking To

1.      What do they like (see list above). What do they dislike (see list above). How old are they?

      Where do they work? What kind of a car do they drive? Are they married, single, or divorced?  What

      other things do they do in their spare time? What foods do they like to eat? Would you be friends with

      them?  Would you let your kids play with their kids? Would you want to be friends with them?  What

      other activities do they do?

2.      Create an offer that this person could not resist because of WHO they are and what their likes and

      dislikes are and make the offer so strong that even you would take advantage of it.   There’s a lot of

      competition out there so you need to stand out.

3.      Create a sense of urgency within your offer; “only 10 spots left, “going soon”, “limited offer”

4.      Don’t forget that within your offer, you must have a headline that will snap my head around, an offer

      that is irresistible (either it diminishes their pain or enhances their pleasure), a guarantee that you will

      stand behind, a testimonial or two that supports your claim of what a great offer this is and how happy

      other people have been when they bought it.  Make sure that your graphic matches the audience and the

      offer. Or  is the graphic so off the wall that the potential customer will just have to stop and look.                                                                                          

Step Five:  Go Write The Direct Mail, Flyer Or Email Using This Formula. 

1.    If you send me your “homework” I will critique the “homework” for the first 25 people who 

    send me their finished product (Absolutely FREE) and provide you with feedback.

2.      Or you can just do what you have always been doing…I’ll be happy to critique that too! :)

The Hunt For Summer Business Is On

The hunt for summer league bowlers is on. Many of you are well into it. Many of you are partially into it and some of you (I hope its only some) have just started.

No doubt you will get your leagues on the floor, some better than last year and some a little worse. But here's one thing you can all do to get more revenue

You can start now to sell summer parties, day care centers, summer camps and fund raisers.  Please don't tell me that nobody wants a summer bowling party. I have seen some of my clients rack up amazing revenue over the summer just because they really gave it an all out effort.  

So if you're inclined to want to make more money in the summer, here's what you need to do in May:

Create a summer party theme. I like to use "Summer  Bowling Picnic" but you can call it anything you want as long as it gets your target audience's attention.  You can call it "Get Off our Apathy Bowling Summer."  Just call it something that is ridiculously relevant.

Write a really convincing letter to Ms. Human Resource Director as to why she should coordinate a summer bowling picnic/team building event. In the letter, tell her that bowling picnics never get rained out; that everyone can play; that bowling has more participants than golf (68 million to 26 million), that bowling is a lot less expensive than a $50 round of golf.  Put yourself in her shoes and answer the question, "why out of all the summer team building options I have, why should I choose bowling?"

1. Come up with a great offer that is irresistible:  "Bring 2 people, pay for one;"  "Bring 25 people or more and we'll pay for the first round of beverages;" "Win a vacation to the Caribbean for two when you bring 25 or more people;" Save $200 when you bring 40 or more people."  You get it, right?
2. Note: you can test all of your offers by splitting up the mailing list and sending one offer to everybody whose last name starts with A - M . And the second offer to people whose last name end in N -Z.Send the letter to your corporate list; people you had parties with over the holidays or over the last twelve months.  
3. If you have corporate email use it (3 times in 30 days - means 3 sequential letters). if you have a mailing list use it.
4. If you don't have one, go to www.infousa.com and get one that surrounds a 3 or 5 mile area
5. Put the summer picnic information on your website --- home page - click here for more information should take them to a landing page where they can fill out a form that says what they are looking for in a party and then you will respond
6. Start face book posts on it
7. Place POS information in the center
8. Now start calling back the people you sent letters to asking them if they are interested in a party
9. Revisit big retail stores in your area ) Target, Kmart, WalMart, the usual suspects and ask to speak to the manager about a team building event.
10. Repeat steps 1 thru 9 in June

Please follow these steps and you have a chance at winning the summer. 

Don't follow it, or follow it half assed or just sit back, do nothing, stuck in the same old mindset that "they wont bowl in the summer even if you give it away" and tell me at Bowl Expo 2013 that your business is "so so" and we all know what that means!

"Our Time Theatre" Needs Your Support

Dear Friends,

For those of you who are "American Idol" fans, you no doubt have seen the audition of Lazaro Arbus, a young Cuban man who stutters while he talks, but does not stutter when he speaks.  Speech pathologists around the world aren't sure why this phenomenon occurs other than to attribute it to "its another part of the brain that sings, not talks."  Here  is Lazaro's interview and song; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLdg9FMp7f8&feature=youtu.be

Like Lazaro, Mel Tillis, a famed country singer also stutters while talking but never while singing. And this year, Mr. Tillis will be the honoree of this year's annual Our Time Theatre Award to be presented at our gala event in Manhattan on Monday, April 22nd.

My involvement as a Board member of Our Time Theatre has been very rewarding and very humbling.  I watch these kids perform and sing and dance and act and marvel at their courage to stand up in front of an audience and "share their voice."  The Our Time Kids attend the program for FREE. there is never a charge. To the program we have added a summer camp, various workshops and new initiatives all in the never ending quest to help these young people find their voice.

when I was younger and struggled with my stutter, I never wanted to be in the spotlight; I never wanted to talk in front of others and candidly, never wanted to be exposed to the teasing, the tormenting and the rash conclusions that people made about stutterers; how there was something "mentally wrong" or they were "too nervous", "too skittish" and worse, "were not very smart."  Years later we found out that we were as good as anyone else and that we too had a voice that needed to be heard.

So this year, as I appeal to your philanthropic side, I urge you, beg you and embrace you to send some of your hard earned money to the Our Time Kids; kids who struggle with their speech from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep.  Unlike you, they have the added pressure not just of thinking of what they are going to say , but HOW they will say it. It is continuously emotionally draining and debilitating.

And that's where Our Time comes in, by providing an artistic home for kids who stutter, we can provide them with a renewed sense of confidence, a place where they can feel safe; a place where no one makes fun and a place where people dont complete their sentences.

For more information about this wonderful cause and how you can contribute, please go to http://www.ourtimestutter.org/gala/

Please, whatever you can spare, $10, $20, $100 or more, please support this charity and think of it as doing a "really good deed"...because you will be doing just that!

Many thanks in advance for your support of Our Time Theatre.

Sincerely,
Fred Kaplowitz

p.s.  Please view this short video about last year's Our Time Gala: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=UUAkSYbm7y-ge9ZcwUTd2HHg&v=fEX2ELBHQlg (Please copy and paste into your browser)