Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Graham and Ashkahn finally take the time to answer the most anticipated question of the year. Now their ever loyal and patient fans will finally get the answer they’re looking for.
Show Resources
The Float Conference – Buy tickets, see dates, schedules, get accommodations, maps… everything you need to enjoy this special event.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: And today’s question, we actually had coming in from a few hundred different listeners. So, I thought it was about time we addressed it, which was, here, let me pull it out here. “Tell me more about your magical and enchanting float conference for 2018? How can I go? How can I give you all of my money?”
Ashkahn: Wow. That’s a great question.
Graham: Yeah, well, and we really appreciate it.
Ashkahn: It’s on everybody’s mind. Yeah. So, thank you for that genuine question from people out there. So, we got a Float Conference.
Graham: Woo!
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s pretty exciting. It’s been happening since 2012, so this will be-
Graham: I was gonna say since 1901. You really jumped on my joke there, you know?
Ashkahn: This will be our seventh Float Conference that’s coming up here, and it’s in Portland, Oregon. We’ve always done them in Portland, Oregon.
Graham: That’s more than you can count on one hand, plus an extra thumb.
Ashkahn: Yeah, which is, I mean, that’s the real milestone that most people are going for. It’s good. For those of you who’ve never been to the Float Conference before, it’s basically kind of like a giant party where everybody from the float industry from around the world comes out and gets to hang out together.
Graham: And some confused people not from the float industry, too.
Ashkahn: Yeah, very, very unaware that they’re in the middle of a float tornado. But there are sometimes we’re in different buildings, and people are like, “what is going on here?”
But yeah, it’s super fun. People come out from all around the world who run float centers and are generally kind of in the float industry, and they come all out to Portland, Oregon and we have a couple days worth of talks from things like researchers presenting their newest data, Justin Feinstein always brings his crew with him from his lab and they get to share kind of the newest information they’ve been researching over the year.
Graham: Which is always really exciting. It’s actually, I think that’s a lot of people’s favorite part is actually getting got see the data for what floats are doing to people, you know?
Ashkahn: Uh-huh. So, yeah. That’s cool. Big float centers around the world. We usually invite a few people like out to give talks, generally kind of cool, interesting people somewhat related to the whole kind of float universe.
Graham: And a handful of really boring speakers that we just sort of sprinkle in-
Ashkahn: We pepper in. Make the other people look better, you know?
Graham: Yeah, yeah.
Ashkahn: That’s the goal.
Graham: It’s all about dynamic range, I think is what they recommend for conferences, you know?
Ashkahn: So, it is, I like this about all conferences, is just that you really get to go and learn about the absolute newest information happening, which is always cool. We go to a bunch of conferences and that’s always my favorite part. You just really feel like you’re on the kind of leading edge of information. That’s true of the Float Conference, too. I go there and I learn a bunch of stuff over the course of the weekend. I’m like, wait, what’s happening?
There’s a bunch of, especially nowadays, crazy stuff happening in the float world. There’s some serious research being done through the Air Force, and those people who are just starting to enter this world last year came out and presented what they were working on and where they were planning on their research going, and it’s cool just to see the stuff that is otherwise a little bit hidden in the float world, that you don’t know is happening behind the scenes and see where it’s going.
Graham: Yeah. New float tank launches every year at the float conference, which is always exciting to see what people bring out. Often times, we don’t even know ahead of time-
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: People will just tell us, “We’re debuting some kind of new float technology,” and we get to be surprised along with everyone else when they roll it out.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Also, it’s just pretty much the greatest group of people you can gather into a room together. Everybody is super chill, they’re super relaxed, they’re really happy to be there, and they’re super happy to talk to each other and share information and help each other out. It’s a really community focused group of people, and this is the time that everyone actually gets to be together in one physical space.
Graham: Derrick Wyatt always describes it as a big float family reunion, but without any creepy uncles, and better food.
Ashkahn: So, it’s super fun. It’s a super fun time. If you’ve never been out before, obviously we recommend that you come out.
Graham: What are the dates this year? We just set them, right?
Ashkahn: The dates, yeah. So, August 18th and 19th-
Graham: I’m glad I didn’t say my dates I had in my head. I was wrong. I was wrong.
Ashkahn: Marchvember … August 18th and 19th, 2018 is the main conference, that’s a Saturday and Sunday. We also put on a workshop called the “How to Start a Float Center Workshop,” which, as you can imagine, is all about how to start a float center. That’s the two days beforehand, so that’s-
Graham: We’re not very good at coming up with clever names for things.
Ashkahn: No, it’s just very direct.
Graham: “Float Conference”, “How to Start a Center workshop”. Yeah.
Ashkahn: It’s a very just literal sort of thing. So, yeah. If you’re in the planning stages or thinking about opening up a center and you want a bunch of information, that’s the thing you want to come to. How to Start a Float Center workshop.
Then what’s becoming a bigger and more awesome part of the event every year is the Friday activities.
Graham: I thought you were gonna say the CPO training.
Ashkahn: That happen, they’re activities that happen on Friday. They go with our general theme of extremely blunt naming. Basically, people in the industry who are coming to the conference who want to organize their own little activity or event will put these on. So, we do a couple of them. We usually do a bus tour-
Graham: Beer bus tour.
Ashkahn: A beer, yeah, drinking-
Graham: Craft beer-
Ashkahn: Craft beer-
Graham: Double decker-
Ashkahn: Double decker bus tour.
Graham: Bus tour.
Ashkahn: It takes you around to the different float centers in Portland while you drink beer on the second story of a bus.
We put on a marketing forum last year, which was super fun. Had a bunch of panels from various float center owners talking about their marketing advice.
Then a bunch of people just put on all sorts of cool stuff, like maybe 10 to 20 independent-
Graham: Floatlympics this year, was one of my favorites.
Ashkahn: Community events. Yeah, the Floatlympics was very silly. So-
Graham: Salt bag tosses, and …
Ashkahn: That’s the day before the main Saturday/Sunday. So, that’s the Friday. Which is usually, I kind of consider it the start of the conference at this point. You come on that Friday morning, you do a whole day of activities, and then you start in on the main talks on Saturday.
Graham: We have a special program, too, where you can actually come and live in our float center for three months leading up to the conference and volunteer and help us out, and occasionally Ashkahn and I will actually let you come sleep in our rooms with us, and sort of have a little sleepover, braiding hair kind of thing.
Ashkahn: Have the scraps of our food.
Graham: That’s maybe once every two weeks, yeah.
So, if you’re interested in that, definitely reach out.
Ashkahn: Yeah. That’s it. It’s super fun. It’s super fun time.
Graham: Yeah. It’s really fun. Come on out and say hello. Let us give you big hugs.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Floatconference.com is the website. This is good. I think this was a very genuine question, and thanks for … I hope this information was a really tactical and pragmatic-
Graham: Yeah, and maybe now you’ll stop pestering us every day with all those emails asking us to cover this on the podcast, you know?
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: If you have any more totally genuine, legitimate questions that are actually submitted by users, or you’re users. What are you guys again? Listeners?
Ashkahn: Submitters?
Graham: Sub, by you, submitted by you, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast, enter them in, and yeah, we’ll talk to you tomorrow.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Why Do Float Centers use Child Sized Earplugs? – DSP 245
When shopping around for earplugs for float tanks, there’s only a few that actually work well in the float solution. One of these is the Mack’s wax earplugs, basically the standard for swimmers as well. But why do so many float centers buy the child sized ones when stocking their float center?
Ashkahn “Big Ears” Jahromi let’s all of us know what he thinks is going on and that many people may be using these earplugs incorrectly. Graham “Normal Ears” Talley, backs him up with some facts and important reminders.
What Causes that Float Tank Twitch? – DSP 244
Graham and Ashkahn discuss what causes that mysterious twitch people sometimes experience in the float tank, called the hypnic jerk (AKA hypnagogic jerk, sleep start, sleep twitch, myoclonic jerk, or night start ). While the guys offer up some interesting theories, there’s not a lot of research that’s been done on what causes these, so we’re left with theories, more or less.
Ashkahn thinks it has to do with pancakes.
Does floating impact the Parasympathetic Nervous System? – DSP 243
The Parasympathetic Nervous System is the part of your body that gets really excited when the rest of your body is winding down. Taking care of the digestive and rest systems are an important part of human health and physiology. How do float tanks affect this system?
Many of the studies on floating have demonstrated an impact on the parasympathetic nervous system. Graham and Ashkahn talk about the information that’s been studied so far.
Getting Salty With Speakers – Professor Hu – DSP 242
Dr. Peicheng Hu is a researcher from China that studies floatation therapy over there. He’s speaking at the Float Conference this year so Ashkahn decided to take the opportunity to talk to him about the Chinese float industry and some of the differences in the practice as well as the type of research being done out there.
Are Google Ads Important – DSP 241
When looking at online marketing, Google Ads seem like an obvious choice, but are as relevant for Float Centers as they are for other businesses? The most useful thing these ads do is boost search result placement, but if the ads are to boost the ranking of a float center that is the only center in town, it’s not going to affect search results much.
Derek and Graham dissect the platform and really focus in on the uses (or lack thereof) of Google Ads for float centers and provide tools and tips for online marketing and how to make it as effective as possible.
Latest Blog Posts
Fancy Acronyms for your Business Plan: TAM, SAM, and SOM
In this post, we’ll be looking at those enigmatic acronyms: TAM, SAM, and SOM, which are the backbone for the market analysis section of your written plan. We’ve helped a couple hundred float centers to develop their business plans, and we’ve found that this one area generates the most questions, and seems to generally be the most difficult to wrap your head around.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #9
The Float Tour makes a stop in Tulsa, OK to visit Dr. Justin Feinstein’s Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute of Brain Research (LIBR).
Rather than following the usual path of incremental progress with its research, LIBR is tasked with pursuing alternative treatments that have a chance of “shooting the moon” and making potentially large leaps in medical progress. Float tanks are just the kind of technology they’re looking to explore.
Float Tank Centers for Sale
On our journey we found at least three owners who are actively looking to sell their float tank centers, and in all three cases the centers are doing well. Life often calls us in different directions than we expect.
In case you’re in the market for a pre-established business, without all the trials and tribulations of starting from scratch, here’s information on two centers that are, for the moment, available to swoop in on…
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #8
The desert is vast and the sun is harsh, but it doesn’t deter floating. We’re officially off the beaten path. From here, the float centers have become a bit more spread out. Everywhere we go, however, the people continue to be kind and eager to see us.
Everything in between Arizona and Texas is nestled in between some of the major manufacturers in the United States, providing some resources that other areas just don’t have. Areas that might find building out a center prohibitively expensive due to additional shipping costs, not to mention that real estate is cheaper than in major metropolitan areas, can save a bit of money when planning their buildout.
