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.
Recent Podcast Episodes
How Many Managers Does it Take to Run a Float Center? – DSP 200
Not every float center owner wants to be tethered to working their shop for the rest of their lives. In fact, even some that enjoy that work immensely can be doing their business a disservice by focusing on day-to-day operations as opposed to dedicating their time to marketing or expansion.
So how do float center owners get out of the shop? How many managers (Or Taco Supremes as they’re called at Float On) does it take to effectively replace the shop owner at a business. Ashkahn and Graham have successfully implemented a system at Float On that allows them to be much more hands off on the business than when they first opened and they share how got to that point and how their business structure has evolved.
Float Centers in Hip Neighborhoods – DSP 199
Do float centers in the hip part of town do better than ones on the outskirts? Graham and Ashkahn are well versed on this in that Float On is in a fairly hip part of Portland.
The guys break down some of the benefits of being one of the “cool” businesses in town as well as some of the serious drawbacks. Naturally, things like foot traffic aren’t as important. Almost no one walks into a float center and hops in a tank off the street. So there are fringe benefits to it, like awareness, but if you decide on going to a different part of town, then you’re not automatically doing a disservice to your brand.
Can You Clean a Float Tank with Vinegar? – DSP 198
You have to change out your float tank water eventually. Is it a good idea to give your float tank a vinegar cleanse when you do? is that effective? Is it too much work for the results? Are there better solutions to keep your tank clean and fresh?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss while providing assurances like “either you’re not crazy or we’re all crazy”, so that’s nice.
Have you Experienced Challenging Floats? – DSP 197
Graham and Ashkahn share stories about their most challenging floats. Everything from extreme physical discomfort to literally staying in too long.
They also share stories of floats from friends and customers that they’ve accumulated over the years and discuss the value of experiencing these difficult moments in the tank and how you might approach them when one occurs at your center.
What’s the Best Representation of Float Tanks in TV or Movies? – DSP 196
It happens every once in a while, a tv show or a movie will feature a float tank and the entire industry gets a jolt as if to say “we made it to the big time!”
But not all float tank cameos are created equal, so which one does it the best? What is the best representation of floating in media? Graham and Ashkahn go through the list of everything from Altered States to Stranger Things to find out what it is.
Latest Blog Posts
Lessons for Float Centers from a Mainstream Marketing Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend Copyblogger’s Authority Rainmaker Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a self proclaimed marketing nerd, this was an opportunity to mingle with my people. I believe no matter how much experience you have in...
A Quick Note on Insulation…
Insulating the roof/joists of your float center... Basically, what you're trying to do here to create an envelope around your space. You're trying to create a barrier between a conditioned environment (your float room) and an unconditioned environment (open air). This...
Encouraging Creativity After Floating
Most float tanks centers have customers. So as to have a place to put these customers where they will be able to sit, or stand, as they please and not be in the way, most float tank centers also have lobbies. So as to have something - some surface upon which these...
Float Center Education Through Internships
Why Have an Intern Program? I (Marshall) started my career in floating as an intern, coming in to the shop each Monday to learn about floating, sanitation, and better understand the intricacies of construction projects. For every four hours I worked, I was expected to...
