Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Celebrities carry a lot of weight with their opinions. Often times they can be trend setters, especially for things like alternative wellness or things that might traditionally be seen as a little “out there” by the standards of contemporary society. Getting one to float in your center is a huge boon, naturally, and can be a really effective way to get some marketing.
So how do you land someone like Steph Curry at your float center? Well, fortunately Graham and Ashkahn are all too familiar with this, having had dozens of celebrities come in and float at Float On. They share their tips on what they do (and don’t do) when having celebrities float at their center.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “How do you get celebrities to float at your center?”
Ashkahn: I’m assuming they mean other than us.
Graham: Yeah, all we need is an invitation, we’ll come over.
Ashkahn: Yeah, we’ll be there, you know. This is the way you wanna ask, that’s fine.
Graham: So, it’s actually something that happens a lot, is, you know, relatively well known people going in to float. Probably because they have some disposable income or something. And like doing crazy things. I guess there’s two class of celebrities as well. A list and B list. You know, so there’s people who are actually in your area who could become regular floaters and who live near you. And there’s just the morass of other celebrities out there who exist somewhere in space time.
So, and we reach out to both.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And we actually have pretty good success in getting both of those categories to come in.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s true. And we do … I mean you have something going for your benefit, which is that floating is interesting, you know. It’s just like you’re inviting them to do something that’s kind of inherently interesting and that, you know it’s not like you’re trying to get celebrities to come get an oil change at your place or something like that.
So, you already have that really working in your favor, which is nice. And, often I’ll find when we reach to people who aren’t from town it’s often cause someone sees that they’re coming to do a show or something like that, right? Like their favorite comedian or their favorite band or something like that is coming into town to come perform.
And, you know we just, we’ll just email them. We’ll email their manager, whatever email we can find online and we’ll just try to write a very like, genuine email that often goes along the lines of like “Hey, you know I really like the stuff you do and I run this float tank business and I just want to give something back to you because I feel like you’ve just given me a bunch throughout the years. And, so, I’d be more than happy to have you come in for a free float if you’re in town. You know we’re open from these times and you can bring someone else with you if you want.” And just kind of leave it at that. Like a very simple and genuine email, kind of focused on why you just want to give them a float because you really just appreciate the kind of work that they’ve done. And that gets a shocking amount of replies.
Graham: Yeah. It’s actually, shocking I mean even to us and we’re the ones who like came up with that idea.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And it is kind of a numbers game, right? Like you can’t be offended when you send out this very personal email to someone. You’re like “I’ve been a fan of you for so long, like I have something for you to, or something that I can offer you now, you know if you’re passing through this area, come in and float.”
If you never hear anything back, like that’s fine. But the amount of times that we do is probably greater than 50 percent.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s crazy.
Graham: Which, is … I’d expect maybe a five percent or ten percent response rate from reaching out to managers and people passing through town. It’s way, way higher than that.
Ashkahn: And we are reaching out to people we actually like. We’re not just like, trolling for anybody who seems famous. If it’s someone I really like, I’ll write the email to them. And if it’s someone someone else on our staff really likes, they’ll be the ones to contact them.
Graham: Which is also a good point too, along the lines of it being a numbers game is, open it up to your staff.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And even to other members of your family or something like that, you know. If someone’s coming through town that is a celebrity that they enjoy or appreciate, giving other people the ability to send out that same type of email and invite them in for free floats. Kind of just permission to a broader audience to reach out to people they care about. Like, that goes a really long way towards those numbers panning out and you actually getting a fair amount of well known people passing through.
Ashkahn: And the crazier thing is that actually what often happens is not only will they come in and float, but then they’ll give you free tickets to their show. Which, is awesome. That’s happened to us so many times. This cool person we really like will be coming to town, and they’ll come float and then all of the sudden we have fifth row, center seats to their show the next night. That they just gave us.
Graham: Or backstage passes or yeah, it gets really crazy sometimes.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Which is awesome. And it’s a really cool perk for your staff too. The ability for your staff members to offer these things to musicians or actors or people who they really admire. And for those people to then actually come in, and they get to check them into their rooms and go to their shows afterwards and stuff like that, it can be actually a really meaningful and rewarding part of the job too. Giving people the ability to do this.
Ashkahn: Yeah and you know, these people often when they’re coming in like this are tired, you know. They’re on the road. They’re in a different city every night and they’re working hard and I think they’re especially appreciative of the floats. They often come out and have these great experiences because their bodies are just exhausted from the trips that they’re on currently. So, it has that kind of bonus as well.
Graham: Yeah, and we’ve been talking a lot about the people who are traveling or who are just passing through town and as you can imagine it’s actually sometimes easier to get the people who are living in town permanently here in as floaters. You know, lots of times what we’ll do for those is kind of more of an open invitation even. You know, lots of times people like can pay and have enough money, obviously, but if we respect them enough it’s just kind of just like “Hey, come in and float whenever you want. And bring your wife and bring your husband.” or something like that. And that’s really cool, again it’s getting to give back to people who have had an influence in your life and rarely do you have celebrities actually abusing the idea of free floats.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And, you know, more often what you do is you end up with someone who becomes an advocate for floating. And we don’t, I guess another side of this is, “what do we do once we get a celebrity in?”
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: How do we take advantage of the fact that we have a celebrity coming in and floating?
Ashkahn: Personally, and this, you’ll hear different opinions on this. So this does come into a little bit into kind of your own personal preference. We tend to not really do anything. We don’t ask them to take a picture with us, necessarily or for business purposes. Maybe someone wants to take like a personal photo with them. But, we’re not posting them onto our social media, we’re not, you know, asking them to do certain things for us. We’re not even like specifically saying “Hey, if you could give us a mention on your Twitter or something like that.” We’re pretty much just doing that. We’re giving them a free float because we like them. And that’s it. We’re not really making an ask in return. And often what happens is people will just do that stuff anyway. Like, you’ll notice that the next day they did make a post on their twitter account about going in to float. And they’ll kind of rep you even without you asking them, if they want to. And if they’re comfortable with it.
Graham: Yup. And that’s, very much Float On opinion land. It’s just one of those things if you like… celebrities get harassed so many places that they go. And kind of singled out for being celebrities. And, here we are offering this service, which is basically getting away from all of the clutter of the outside world. And, so it almost like tied back into their celebrity status and try to and take advantage, is probably a strong word. But, again get some benefit for your business out of them being a celebrity just feels like a little bit counter to what we do. So, it’s a very philosophical thing. I know plenty of float centers that every time a celebrity comes in they actually are very diligent about asking for that photo shoot. Or asking for a Facebook mention.
I’ve also heard from their side that the celebrities don’t care.
Ashkahn: Right. They’re just used to it.
Graham: Right, It’s like when they do ask it, they’re not offended or anything like that. So, if you’re nervous about offending people or asking that way, you shouldn’t be. They don’t care, they get it all the time. They understand. It’s great for your small business. They can help out. They’re usually happy to. This is just a stance that we at Float On have kind of, again, philosophically decided to take on not specifically asking for things.
And, I think that’s about all I have to say about celebrities.
Ashkahn: Yeah, give it a try. It’ll be more successful than you think.
Graham: And really fun giving a walk through to people who you’ve just seen on-
Ashkahn: Yeah, totally.
Graham: … screen or have been following for a long time. Like, it’s a very satisfying experience. Actually, yeah, what’s your favorite celebrity who you invited out-
Ashkahn: Let me think.
Graham: … and actually gave a walk through to?
Ashkahn: I emailed Eddie Izzard at some point. Who have always been like a, I’ve always really loved his stand up comedy and like a big stand up fan of his stand up since, like I was in early high school and stuff like that. And I just got a response, just like “Hey, you know, yeah, like when we’re in town we’ll see if you we can do this.” And then, that time came when they were in town, and they did. They came in and floated and they gave us free tickets to a show and I got to give Eddie Izzard a walk through and it was awesome. Super, super great moment.
Graham: And also, one of a few of our staff are really into hard metal bands. And actually, kind of like people will come and actually contact us and be like-
Ashkahn: That’s true.
Graham: “Hey I’m a world famous metal band touring through your area, I heard I might be able to come in and float with you guys?”
You know, so we’ve actually developed a little reputation in like, the metal scene. Which, we call it “The Darkest Place on Earth” when we send out those emails to kind of entice them to come in.
All right. Have a great one out there, everybody. And as always send in your own questions so that we can answer them with as high quality answers as we provided you tonight. Or today or tommorning. Tommorning? Or whenever you listen to it. And to do that you go to Floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
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Latest Blog Posts
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #28
Home sweet home! After so many months on the road, it was strange being back here in Portland. We were exhausted, excited, and a little travel weary. The first night back, I slept in my own bed for the first time in three months and the world just melted away.
Having travelled across the United States, I’m reminded of how insular Portland is. We are aggressively fixated on keeping things local. Local beer, ketchup, bikes, pet food, pillows, phone cases… it’s part of our charm. We want to reward people for living here and being a part of the community. It’s so pervasive that, after living here for so long, I kind of forgot that Secret Aardvark hot-sauce isn’t available everywhere, and that most cities don’t even recycle, let alone compost.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #27
Our northern neighbor – a sister city, of sorts – Seattle is the largest metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest. It’s the land of Microsoft and Kurt Cobain, and the culture here embraces both simultaneously. It’s tech business professional in the front and rock n’ roll grunge in the back. This blend creates a perfect storm of high energy business life and high energy nightlife, making relaxation a valuable commodity. Floating helps fill the void left by nightmarish traffic and overcrowded restaurants.
Given that it’s so close to home, the float centers in Seattle are a lot more familiar to us. Our visits here were more like a high school reunion than they were like the first day of school. During some of our visits, we were picking up conversations right where we left them.
The Float Tour Blog Issue #26
Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, and third largest on the West Coast. It’s a major hub for international trade, with one of the largest ports in the world, giving it a large migrant population, mainly from Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. It’s also been a long-time home to the Canadian film industry, and has even been nicknamed “North Hollywood.” Dozens of film and television productions from major studios film here every year.
Vancouver is very much an international city. It has large boroughs dedicated to varying cultures, including one of the largest Chinatowns in the world. The society here is more receptive to new ideas, always looking for the next big thing; it’s not surprising that floating has blown up in Vancouver as much as it has.
In the last 3 years, 10 float centers have opened up, most of them being larger 4–6 tank centers. The really interesting thing is how they all opened within the same short amount of time about 1 ½ to 2 years ago, within months of each other.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #25
We finally made it back to the West Coast! We went through the Canadian Rockies and were overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. We drove through hours and hours of winding mountain roads, fertile valleys, and tiny towns so picturesque they looked like movie sets. It was so captivating, in fact, I suspect Graham and Ashkahn may have secretly replaced themselves with robotic doppelgängers to hike throughout Banff.
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