Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
It gets a little tricky sometimes starting an alternative wellness business. Should you offer other services? Should you only have float tanks? Which situation is right for you. Fortunately, you can listen to this episode and get some insight into this exact conversation.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “Would you say that most float centers can be profitable stand-alone operations, or do they work best when paired up with other services? Massage, chiropractics, spa, etc.”
Ashkahn: So.
Graham: So the first part is would we say that?
Ashkahn: Would we say that? Okay.
Graham: I probably wouldn’t say that. Wait, what was the question again?
Ashkahn: You wouldn’t say float tanks work-
Graham: They can. Sorry I got distracted by the massage. I would say that they work either way.
Ashkahn: I would hope so. Because we run a float center, that doesn’t have any other services. So if you didn’t think that could work, we’re in some trouble.
Graham: Yep. So I would say there’s probably a couple of caveats to that. Like, number of tanks that you have and whether or not you want to get out of the business, or you’re running this more as a lifestyle-type of thing and want to be working your business, right?
Ashkahn: Yeah. I feel like anything can work if you care about it. You know, if you’re really into massage and you’re really into acupuncture, and you’re into floating, and you’re willing to put in the time to do all that stuff well, that can work.
If you’re really into float tanks and you don’t know anything about massage, and you’re like maybe I should just throw a massage thing in there too because that makes sense, I feel like that’s one of the variables that leads to success or failure more than the idea of a float center with multiple services or a single service.
Graham: Anything can not work, is what you’re saying?
Ashkahn: Anything can not work, and anything can work. I think you just have to be interested in doing it and be passionate about it.
Graham: I think, once you get above three float tanks, as a stand-alone center, that works a little better in my opinion. Especially when you get down to under three float tanks, you’re talking about one or two tanks, there’s no other services, that’s all you’re doing is one or two float tanks.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: I usually warn people against that. I feel like that’s the danger zone.
Ashkahn: It can be tough. It can just be hard to make enough money to-
Graham: I mean, at that point it feels like just having a float tank in your house and sharing it with people.
Ashkahn: Right, like you’re not going to be able to hire people. You’re working that kind of business yourself.
Graham: Yeah. So, that’s the time where I would say, again, it’s the danger zone. Not to say that it couldn’t work, if you can book that thing up with people paying $150 per float, then you can totally run a profitable business with a single float tank. But it’s gonna be way harder.
And that is where I see massage and chiropractics, specifically from the financial standpoint, being able to come in and balance that and their other services. If your passion is other stuff, and you just want to have a float tank or two to make it available to people, that’s when you should have one or two float tanks.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and I guess usually the worst float tanks I see out there, commercially operated, are by a place that has a big spa with a bunch of different services, and they have one float tank-
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: And they generally don’t know much about it, the staff doesn’t know exactly how to clean it, maintain it, operate it, that sort of stuff. I’ve definitely been to a couple of spas where they have a whole number of devices, and this seemed like one of the other things. They’re like oh, cool, I’ll buy this float tank and put it in-
Graham: And not realizing how completely insane that proposition was, yeah.
Ashkahn: Yeah, maybe there are other devices out there that are easier to handle and they really are just set it and forget it kind of things. But a float tank is not like that. And that’s probably, of all the places I’ve gone to float around the world, those are the worst float centers I’ve seen. Places where it’s just one of a number of services and they clearly haven’t put a lot of time and effort into understanding it and properly taking care of it.
So, it goes both directions as well. But those people probably aren’t listening to this podcast either, so we can’t quite reach them.
Graham: If you get up to the point where you have four or five float tanks and you’re wondering if four, five, six float tanks with the whole wing of massage and additional services versus just those float tanks is going to be more successful? I don’t think there’s any way to tell. I think both are just as likely to succeed as each other.
Ashkahn: Yeah. But, I mean it’s certainly possible to run a center with just float tanks. We do it, there’s another handful of places around North America and the world that do just that.
Graham: A fair amount, actually.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: There’s a lot of float centers out there, that’s all they do. Designated floating.
Alight, good question.
Ashkahn: Great. If you have other questions out there you can hop onto floattanksolutions.com/podcast and that’s it for today. Talk to you tomorrow.
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Latest Blog Posts
2016 Float Conference Program Introduction
It’s been my pleasure to write the introduction to the conference program for five years in a row, and each year I enjoy posting it up on this blog for everyone who didn’t make it out. I hope to see you all in 2017! – Graham
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #16
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The Float Tour Blog – Issue #15
New York is where it’s at, and it’s arguably the busiest place on the planet. People here live fast-paced lives and rarely – if ever – have time to slow the fuck down and enjoy themselves.
Just like Jersey, people here also see skepticism as a point of pride, and take it to an even greater extreme. All of this makes New York a sort of “proving grounds” for floating: if it can make it in New York, it can make it anywhere.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #14
The Garden State houses probably the highest concentration of float tanks on the East Coast. Jersey is a gateway to the major metropolitan areas nearby: New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.
This convenience has made Jersey the suburban hub for every major industry on the East Coast for generations, giving it the highest population density of any state in the U.S. This is fantastic for the float industry; if there’s one statistic that correlates with successful float centers, it’s population density.
