Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
You’re thinking about opening up a float center in your town, and there’s already one humbly chugging along nearby. Like an awkward teenager, you’re not sure if you should ask them to dance. But you totally should.
In this episode, Graham & Ashkahn will talk about what it’s like opening and operating in a city with other centers.
The takeaway? Get out there and say hi!
Show Resources
FTS Blog – Marketing is about relationships
FTS Blog – TAM, SAM, & SOM
FTS Blog – Competing on Price without Slashing Prices
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: We have a good one for you today from our listeners out there.
What are the dynamics and ethics of opening a float center in close proximity to an existing one? Can they coexist in cooperation instead of feeling like adversaries or competition? Specifically in a location with a significantly smaller population size than say, Portland?
Which I don’t know why they chose that city, but …
Ashkahn: First of all, let me tell this person that they need to work on making their questions more succinct. That’s the first lesson here. It’s an interesting question and like we say on this show, fundamentally we don’t really have a good idea because there’s not a lot of cases of this happening out there yet.
We don’t see a ton of float centers right next to other float centers to really know how well they do or how much it affects them. It’s a little bit based off of our hunches on the situation.
First of all, a smaller population than Portland can obviously mean a lot of different things. Then we should talk about this idea of saturation involved in opening float centers too. At some point, if you actually had one float center for every person in the town, that’s too many float centers. That’s not good. Then you’re going to hit too many float centers well before that, but just as an example, there is such a thing as too many float centers for an area, or even too many float tanks.
Graham: Yeah. What that is, that saturation point, will also change based off of how many people know that floating exists and how many people are actively floating. We’re still in a period where only a certain percentage of the population is even aware that this concept is a thing when you compare that to things like massage or other industries. You’d be hard pressed to find someone out there that hadn’t heard of massage before. This is a shifting number too, I think, as this industry develops.
Ashkahn: I guess that’s launching right into things and almost taking our opposite side of the argument, but for those of you who are just joining us or don’t really know our background on policies like this, our general stance is that cooperation is the way to go.
We fully believe that opening float centers in the same city is often times good for both people and that there is great cause to collaborate and rejoice in being in the same awesome industry that you’re part of. In our minds, there is very little reason to treat each other as competition or as the enemy. That’s very much our strong stance on this.
Then there’s all the little details that go into it from there.
Graham: That especially makes sense when you think about this concept of saturation and population, and you have to factor in this huge variable of how many people know about float tanks. Unless that number is 100% or close to 100%, there’s much more room for things to grow and that’s the benefit of having other float centers open up.
[That other center is] somebody else out there who’s spending all day every day trying to get people to know what float tanks are and to come experience them. When you view it from that perspective, another float center opening in your town, is somebody else actually spreading the news on floating and getting more people to know about it, and expanding that pie rather than taking a slice of it.
Ashkahn: Yeah, for a long time, and for many places, I’ve been fond of saying that our greatest competitor’s not other float centers. It’s just general lack of awareness.
It’s not even the massage industry where something like that is a competitor to us as much as just people who have no idea what we do or that we even exist. In that sense, again, that idea of opening up and marketing to more people is exactly what you want to do. The flip side is that I think that there’s right and wrong ways to also go about it and respectful ways to enter into the game.
Not even the float industry, but any industry can open up in the same town. I’ve heard a lot about tattoo places opening up. The kind of ethics that go into opening a tattoo shop in maybe a city that only has one other tattoo shop, and it reminds me very much of float centers as well.
First of all, you don’t want to rent a space in secret, and start opening up, and only tell the other float tank center that you’re opening here one week before your grand opening, and invite them out or something like that, right?
That would be the absolute wrong way I would say to open in the same city as someone else.
Graham: You’d be surprised how much when you go approach float centers, if you’re thinking of opening up near some others, how friendly they’ll actually be. Most of the time, people tell us that not only was it not weird or awkward, but in fact they went and got drinks right afterwards and it was actually really nice to be able to talk to someone. Getting started on that float and getting familiar with the people around you, and realizing they’re your allies more than your competition is going to help you in the long run.
Ashkahn: Even from the beginning, treat this as a possibly beneficial relationship and possibly you’re actually making some lifelong friends here. Again, people who’ve decided to get into this strange, salty industry probably share more in common with you than the bulk of humanity.
You might be surprised at who’s just around the corner and is your next float neighbor. Going into it with that attitude and actually trying from the beginning to make friends and approach it, assuming that they’re going to have a good response to it rather than assuming they’ll have a bad response is definitely step one.
Graham: Would you say at this point there is any way to be too close to another float center?
Ashkahn: I would say if you’re the only two centers in town and you’re right next door to the other one, right? It’s the point that you have as many float centers as people, that’s too much. There’s definitely a way to be too close to another float tank center. What too close is is obviously very wishy washy. It depends a lot on population density too. It’s like you telling me that on your journeys through Hong Kong, you’ll have literally a Starbucks on the same block because one is on the ground floor and another one is however many stories up, 200 or something.
If you’re 200 stories away, but on the same exact block is another float tank center, maybe that is okay. I think it depends a lot on your situation. For a smaller density town, definitely being a few miles away would help, or I’ve even seen people who just out of respect want to open in the next town over and cases of places that only have maybe 10,000 or 20,000 people. Something like that. For a 100,000, 200,000 people population city, again, several miles away seems like a good step. It’s not even to say that that would impact business. That just seems off hand, what I would treat as a responsible move.
Graham: If someone does open very close to you, you might see a dip at first, but then you might see things expand more because it’s not as double the amount of effort to get the word out about float tanks happening right in your neighborhood.
Ashkahn: Although the question specified for cities not like Portland, I should say every time another float tank center open, we’ve seen an uptick in our own business and in interest. I think that comes directly as a result of more people finding out about floating through the other marketing efforts and through more word of mouth being out there, and just more people in whatever city it is actually hopping in a float tank, which is how this whole industry spreads anyway. There you have it. Fair and balanced 100% unbiased report.
Graham: Yeah, that’s right. This is all based off of data and not our own just random opinions.
Ashkahn: I guess one last thing on that front too. I don’t even care what the data is for a Float On. Take what lessons you want to weigh for your own float tank center, but for Float On, if I found out that we have a 3% decrease in business when another float tank center opens in town or something even more dramatic, we’ll gain 20% if we’re jerks to them and treat them as competition, and really launch this harsh advertising campaign against them. We’ll lose money if we don’t do that. I still would want to be friendly and not launch the asshole news campaign against them or advertising campaign, right? Some things I think also come down to the way you want to do business and can’t even come down to the bottom line.
Graham: Yeah. I would say in more cases than not, those things are not at odds with each other and more typically line up than you would think.
Ashkahn: It’s great when those two things align. Best of luck for you out there opening in the same smaller city as another float tank center, and I hope that you guys get to have many great adventures together.
Hopefully you share some nice conversations and meals.
Recent Podcast Episodes
When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275
Graham has Juliet on the podcast today since Ashkahn is doing some post-Conference traveling.
The duo talks about times when floating just doesn’t feel like a good idea, which is something they have a bit of disagreement about. Juliet shares her experiences being cautious of her experiences in the tank and how she tends to have to be more mindful of when she floats.
How do you Handle Changing Memberships? – DSP 274
This year at the Float Conference, Derek hosted a marketing forum and took questions that he wanted to share with everyone here.
This episode focuses on how Float On handles memberships, including tiered memberships and how to gracefully transition from one type of membership to another.
Are Vapor Barriers a Good Idea for Float Centers? – DSP 273
You can tell when Graham starts to miss Ashkahn when he makes a soundboard made up of sound clips from previous episodes just to have Ashkahn do another intro.
Jake and Graham break down barriers in this episode. Vapor barriers, that is. These tools are a little confusing in the construction world and their efficacy is hotly debated in just regular construction, never mind the demands that a float center has, especially in regards to moisture protection. Fortunately, Graham and Jake know a thing or two about a thing or two and explain what vapor barriers are, how they work, and what the source of contention is.
What to Consider with Plumbing in a New Float Center – DSP 272
Graham and Jake talk about the confusing world of plumbing for your float center. There are any number of unpleasant surprises that can come about when planning the water lines to showers, getting floor drains in place, and making sure everything lines up how it’s supposed to. If the sewer main is too deep or not where you think it is, it can add a significant amount of cost to your build out just to get floor drains installed. Fortunately, the guys have some useful tricks to help mitigate costs and plan accordingly.
Should I use Spray-in Insulation for my Float Center? – DSP 271
Graham and Jake are still in a sans Ashkahn world at Daily Solutions, but they’re not letting it harsh their mellow.
The guys are talking about the different types of spray-in insulation today. It’s a pretty common material in construction and it can be a fantastic insulator for float centers, if you get the right type.
Jake and Graham go over the differences between open cell and closed cell insulation and why, specifically, float centers should avoid open cell insulation. They also provide some excellent pointers on the materials themselves and good conversations to have with a contractor regarding insulation.
Latest Blog Posts
Oh, the Questions You’ll Hear!
When you run a float tank center, you’re going to get asked a lot of questions. Do I float naked? Can I drown? Is this sanitary? Many of these are easy to answer: It’s recommended. Not without a conscious, and determined effort. Yes! There are some questions, however,...
Happy TANKSgiving (Giving Gifts to Monthly Members)
Monthly memberships are an important way to ensure that your float tank center has a consistent, if not dependable, amount of business.
While pricing structures for memberships vary widely across the industry, we’re focusing less on the strategy of what to charge and looking more at the benefits we’re actually offering. Once we’ve established a solid offering, then we can revisit pricing.
Running a successful monthly membership program takes more than just charging customers and making sure they use their credits. With a little creativity, we can find ways to increase engagement.
Your Flow Meter May Be Inaccurate (and what to do about it)
Float tanks tend to use a lot of parts borrowed from the pool and spa industry and, whenever that happens, it’s always important to question whether that pool part works accurately with our salt water solution. We’ve recently gained some insight into that question on...
The Float Tour Blog Roundup!
The following is our collection of links to the all of the Float Tour blogs. My chronicling of our adventure, highlighting all of you out there.
Thank you for the memories.
