6 Secrets To Boost Your Summer Revenue

If you are thinking about your summer league bowling plans; good for you. If you have your plans done; great.  If you haven’t started yet, well, good luck!

But no matter what state your plans are in, here are a couple of more ideas to kick your revenue bucket into a higher gear;

Here are a few tips to make your summer even better:

1.     Don’t rely on just one flooring cycle. Sure your winter leagues will end about the same time give or take a week, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have programs in late June mid July and even early August.

2.     Establish programs for people who don’t know they are not supposed to bowl in the summer; whether it be church fund raising leagues for 6 or 8 weeks, or any fund raising organization, you will build some revenue and get some people interested in your other programs you have to offer.

3.     Make belie it is October and go after companies for indoor picnics where you never get rained out, where you never have ants or mosquitoes and no one gets heat stroke.  If you are diligent in this fashion, it could be your biggest winner ever.

4.     Set up 8 for 8 programs every month, May, June, July and August and place them so they can carry over to the fall in time slots you will know you have open.  BY always having an 8 for 8 program available, you always have a portal to entry and let people know that there ARE lanes available at your center…always.

5.     Start a KBF league; two games but you get the same kids there on specific days and can start informally coaching them and maybe get them into an 8 week for 8 bucks have a ball program.  Add food and drink specials and even a fun two game tournament or two with kids on certain days. Play your cosmic bowling and give away fun prizes that you can buy at Rebecca’s for 10 cents each. 

6.     Beat the doors down for fund raisers. You have plenty of lane availability and lots of people who are raising money.  Go get a list of nonprofit groups and start emailing, mailing and calling them NOW. start with your local chamber of commerce, Kiwanis, Moose, Eagles and K of C clubs.

I’m not saying this stuff easy, but if it was, everybody would do it!

My One and Only Annual Sales Pitch

Every year about this time, I reach out to you to ask for your support for my charity (SAY.Org)

SAY is the new and improved re branded name for "Our Time."

This is the only time I ever try to sell you something. Ever.

SAY stands for Stuttering Association For The Young. You may not know it, but more than 70 million people in the world stutter, including 5% of all children.

In a world that can be unkind to those who are "different," kids who stutter are often marginalized, humiliated, and meant to feel that they are "bad" because of their stutter.

Their pain and frustration to express themselves is heartbreaking.

Kids who suffer from the pain, frustration and anguish struggle to participate in class, communicate with their friends and family, speaking on the phone or even ordering a Coke at the local convenience store.

Often, to shield themselves from ridicule and humiliation, kids who stutter emotionally shut down and put up barriers which, unfortunately can lead to the child never reaching his full potential.

At SAY.org, we help these kids break down these barriers through singing, dancing and acting. No one ever stutters when they sing or act in a different voice and the confidence they gain is so very powerful.

This April 28th, we will be hosting our 12th Gala event, a major fund raiser to generate  revenue to carry on these higly effective and meaningful programs.

I know all about stuttering. I am one.

And that's why as a proud SAY Board member, I am asking that you support us with your dollars. Whether it is $5, $10 $25, $50 or $100, your contribution would be most appreciated.  This year our honoree is John Scully,  a former stutterer and former Pepsi and Apple executive.

Please support SAY's innovative programs that have helped thousands of kids to realize that they have a voice that matters. And if you are in NYC on Monday, April 28th, please join us at our gala event as we debut our new organizational name; SAY

It's an opportunity for you to see what kids will SAY whats in their heart; SAY what they feel and SAY it in their own words.  It's also an opportunity to rub elbows with some very famous Hollywood and Broadway actors like Paul Rudd, Richard Belzer, Jesse L Martin, Meredith Viera and many more.

For more information on how to contribute, please click and paste here. http://gala.say.org/.  And when you send your check, just put Fred Kaplowitz on the bottom left hand side line so I can send you a personal thank you marketing gift.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for reading this blog and for your future support of SAY.

Much Love to All

Yikes!

Hello,

In my last blog, "Helplessly Hoping," I offered seven (7) of my loyal readers the opportunity to use my marketing audit services for FREE.

If selected, I would provide each center a customized strategic marketing review as well as some detailed tactics to get them going on a more proactive marketing path.

The response was overwhelming.

After just two (2) days,  over 50 centers have asked to be part of this program.

If you still have not sent your name to me, you still have a chance since I have not yet selected the 7 centers yet.

Over the weekend, I will be selecting the seven centers and begin calling those selected starting on Monday.

Thank you, thank you all for your interest, readership and loyal support.

Regards
Fred

Helplessly Hoping

Marie and I are in sunny Florida for a few days visiting my “almost” 101 yr old mother in law. A spry woman she was, drove a car until she was 96 and lived unassisted until 99 years old.

The last several years, however;  have plunged her into a ditch of dementia where her vast knowledge base remains hidden to all of us.

We muse about how sad it is, what a terrible disease this is and we feel totally helpless to assist her, other than to provide her with 24 hour care, daily phone calls and visits from my wife on a monthly basis.

This got me to thinking about bowling and how sometimes I can see the look of helplessness on the faces of some proprietors as they scramble around looking for THE solution to declining lineage.

The only solution, I think, is to learn how to be the best 21^st century marketer you can be. I am not talking about advertising or promotions or direct mail or even Face book or any of the tools we have at our disposal. At least not yet.

But I am talking about learning:  Who buys your various products; why they buy it; how to motivate them to make additional visits and how to generate new customers as well.

The 21^st century marketer must also have a deep understanding of how to create relevant “content” (or at least know where to get it) for the digital age; developing plans for executing your tactics and how to hold people accountable in a non threatening manner.  

If you are willing to learn, I am prepared to assist you on your journey and provide the "foundation" to build more lineage, revenue and profits.

So here’s what I am offering.  

Almost 1500 of you get my “Fredquarters Marketing Blog”. If you’re willing to complete the marketing audit I will send you, I will reply and provide you with a detailed marketing strategy statement, and recommended tactics to achieve your goals; whether it is for this summer or for the fall; your choice.

But here’s the catch.

These strategy statements and tactics are all customized for your particular center and usually take me about 5 to 6 hours to complete. I’ll probably spend another hour or so speaking with you via phone as well.

I value my time at about $150 per hour (hell, you pay your lawyer and accountant more than that and they TAKE money from you).  I, at least, will provide you with a road map that you can use immediately!

I am willing to do it for FREE for SEVEN (7) centers.

I wish I could do more, but I guess donating about $8,000 in professional, battle tested marketing services is just another contribution I am willing to make to the industry I love and has loved me back.

If you want in on it, you’ll have to be one of the first seven.

But please hurry.

I don’t want to feel helpless two times today!!

What Does "Too Expensive" Mean?

More often than not, proprietors will lower their prices to attract customers. Of course, what follows is, other proprietors will do the same following each other down the ladder of “price absurdity.

In fact I have seen whole cities that, traditionally, offer league bowlers a lower price in the summer than in the winter?  Great, now tell me why I am paying more in the fall??

But rarely does too expensive mean “I can’t afford it”.  What it really means is: “it is not worth it or “I see no value for the money I am giving you.”

It is hard for me to justify why I should pay a proprietor who has not invested in his business and has a bowling center that was new in 1980, but looks like my Father's Oldsmobile today!

Why should I pay you $14.95 (for 2 hours of bowling) for your old cosmic show when Happy Lanes about 3 miles away has an upgraded center, modern equipment, great food and stellar service at just $3 bucks more?

Sure you say, more people will save the $3 and go to the old center. Maybe so, but the folks who go to the old center aren’t the new center’s customers anyway.

You see the problem with cutting prices is you get the wrong customers. You get the PITA customer (the Pain In The Ass customer) who abuses your staff, makes a mess of your center and expects everything for free or next to nothing. If you really want that customer, then have at it.  But don’t expect that customer to keep you in business.  In fact, that customer is the reason you cannot reinvest in your business, stay competitive and do the things necessary , in the 21st century, to grow your customer base and bring back exisiting customers.

What you really want is the customer that says, “I’m paying more because it’s worth it.”  The real issue here is to get past the mindset that “everyone is your customer” when in reality the customer you want is the one who values your product and sees your price as a good value and “worth it.”

You don’t need everyone to buy from you. You really don’t.

Unless your center still looks and feels like my Father’s Oldsmobile.

A Guest Blog

One of my subscribers, Lew Sims, owner of Dynasty Lanes in Ohio was kind enough to respond to one of my blogs with his own take on building a management team and getting them to all pull in the same direction,

His blog is below:

"Hi Fred,

Loved your seminar in Columbus last week. I like sitting in the front row, but I wish I could have seen some of the facial expressions in the room. You made some really great points and I hope that more than a few will take them to heart. The dollars spend on marketing/advertising is a big deal. If we at a 12 lane center can spend well over $5,000 why can't they?

Maybe they got burnt with ineffective newspaper ad's one time too many times and feel other forms of media, social or not is just not worth it when we both know they are. It just might be some just don't get it. 

An example, Governor Kasich's declaration of June being Kids Bowl Free All Summer Kick-Off Month in Ohio. With all the hard work that went into such a thing, all the positive light it puts on bowling and the awareness it will create among families, communities and the media, I was surprised when I discovered that one my fellow proprietors emailed the BCAO office that we should contact the Governor and ask him why June isn't No Tax Month.

Sometimes when you can lead a horse to water, but instead of drinking it, he ends up drowning in it.

In any case, I always enjoy your blog and one of your recent blogs made some very good points.

Proprietors, managers and employees might be experiencing "burnout" towards the end of March and then they hear from the one time bread and butter bowlers known as traditional length league bowlers over and over when is the season going to be over or I can't wait to be done. This adds to their own decline in enthusiasm.

 We just had a pep talk meeting with our employees. Started it by praising the job they have done so far this season and especially during the month of February (up 21% from last year). The “I don't want to be at this meeting, I'm tired and would rather be sleeping looks” started to disappear as the meeting continued.

 I pointed out what areas they each seemed to be good at. Asked what we could do to make their job easier. Asked for suggestions in new menu items and specials. I acted upon each request within a few days. It was nothing earth shattering just things like adding breaded cauliflower, pizza fries, honey mustard dressing, an extra broom for clean-up , larger font food menus in the snack bar, etc.

I had a league menu for the spring in mind before the meeting started based somewhat upon suggestions they had made during the meeting a few weeks before and some ideas I came up with on my own. We went over them together covering the pluses and minuses of both. We went with total of 4 in which I already planned on doing and another I had 3 or 4 different ideas on concerning Sundays at 8 p.m.. They now had ownership of these league, knew how they worked and knew the best ways of offering them to the customers. Best of all that "burnout" look disappeared.

AS you said, the employees, especially the new ones don't know people aren’t supposed to bowl in the summer either. They listen to the proprietors and the mangers just like we listen to that full season league bowler. We need those employees on board too to add to the league base, we can't do everything ourselves or just rely on flyers. Luckily we haven't had too many "When is the season going to be over" league bowlers at Dynasty Lanes in the last few years.

We have tried to make our league experience more fun with Shammy Wammy's we call Screwey/Lewey's and other league bowler only fun things to do. Our short season leagues have many full season league bowlers in them adding a 2nd, 3rd or 4th league to what they already bowl because they like the fun twist and turns short season formats can provide.

Goals can also help employees. We had some extra expenses this year in order to make our center better, all the employees knew about that at our September meeting. Our goal was adding $50,000 (hard to do for just a 12 laner) compared to last year in sales between September 1st 2013 and September 1st 2014.

At every meeting, either they asked first or we told them just in how we are doing in order to reach this goal. The good thing is that we might just make it! They even asked for management to raise some prices in the bar (wow). Guess what? They told the customers on their own why the increases were needed to improve things.

Communication can be a wonderful thing."

Lew

Meet Your "Super Consumer'?

Old marketing think defined “heavy users” as those consumers who consumed a greater quantity of a product than the “average consumer.

Today, New marketing talks about  “Super Consumers” who we define by both economics and attitudes; they combine big spending with high engagement and deeper interest in new uses for our product.

The super consumer looks for occasions to use the product. An example could be hot dogs. The heavy users’ buy a greater amount of hot dogs and sees them primarily as a backyard barbecue food. The Super Consumer, on the other hand, not only buys a greater quantity of product, but sees their hot dog purchase in other ways; as an after school snack or an ideal fast meal or a late night snack. In other words they look for new uses for the “old product”

Now let’s think about our league bowlers.

Conventional wisdom would indicate that the few bowlers who bowl in two leagues should not be asked to do anything else; should not be asked to buy any more of our “product”, because one more purchase, we think, might cause them to quit altogether,, thus causing us to lose two or even three bowlers and perhaps influence a few teams to leave, resulting in thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

But aren’t these the same bowlers who bowl in house tournaments, who bowl in national and regional tournaments and who bowl in other centers as well?  Doesn’t that tell us that OUR Super Consumers are looking for new ways to use our product?

Yet we have failed to consistently offer them new uses such as:

- Short season competitive programs

- Baker formats in new leagues

- Once a month team or individual tournaments resulting in a world series or bowling championship

- Challenge leagues where teams bowl against PBA teams of the week

- 40 frame games

- Spare Challenges bowl against spares where teams would have to bowl against a series of consecutively
   more difficult spares on two pairs of lanes

No doubt you can add some new ideas to this list that fit your center and your bowler. 

I believe your Super Consumer is just waiting for new ways to use your product.

Jus this one initiative can result in a mutually beneficial circle:  You can do well by showing more love to the customers who love you the the most.

And just by being a little creative you could score some big revenue returns and harvest valuable input for future programs…even in the summer!