How would you describe your center? Any good business has their “elevator speech”. A simple one or two sentence introduction about what your center offers to the marketplace.
I start my relationship with my customers using this sentence. The reason I do? It tells me how much time the owner or reader has thought about their business from a customer’s perspective.
How do you describe your center? Let me give you something to think about. The team at Fun Advisors spends most of their time thinking about your center from the customer’s perspective, so let’s talk about that customer. There are maybe 15% of your customers looking at your center for its attractions. Lazer tag buffs, people who like to bowl, video game players, you get the idea . Everyone else is there for a reason you may not have considered.
Families and adults today have way too many choices on nearly any topic. They can spend their money at home, they can spend their money in the center, they can spend their money on many different things. But it’s not the money spent you should be worried about, you should be thinking about their time. Back in the 1970’s, when cell phones, 150 cable channels, internet and social media didn’t exist, people read books, went on walks, got together and had fun. Home entertainment has created competition for your time.
When you think that most households have at least 1 ½ incomes, you soon realize that the financial decision to come to your center places second behind the time factor. Yet when I walk into a center before we start working with them, most frame their experience in terms of dollars and cents instead of quality of the experience the guests are about to have. Here’s where I’m leading:
We are in the guest experience business. Sure, there are niche markets that are here for specific attractions, but that’s not where your profit will be. Your profit lies in smiling faces of children, your profit lies in parents who are willing to tell their friends what a great time they had, your profit lies in the memories that you create. Are you looking at your business this way?
There are lots of ways to communicate an experience rather than the purchase itself. It starts with understanding that we are there for a good time, not for a good deal.