If you run a business, one of the benefits is that it’s run exactly the way you want it, right? If the “millennials” that you hire don’t do the job exactly the way you want, they’re wrong, right?

Well, maybe. It could just be that the people on the ground doing the day to day operations have their own ideas about what works best. Efficiency is a big deal when running a float center and if there’s something that takes 20 seconds longer per room, that could be the difference between a late float and an on time one. 

Ashkahn and Graham share their perspective on how best to manage employees who have different ways of operating their shop and how the standards were formed at Float On. 

Opening a float center is stressful, and when you first get started, there’s a lot of uncertainty involved. Will people keep coming in to floating from one month to the next? Will it be enough to cover costs? What happens if surprise expenses rise up and throw your center underwater. 

Graham and Ashkahn discuss the existential dread involve in being a small business owner and what they do to not worry so much about the future of Float On. And also self-immolation. 

Recently, the float community has been introduced to some companies willing to lease float tanks for businesses. These are usually different from manufacturers and come with a small fee associated with it. 

Graham and Ashkahn discuss the issues to consider when looking at these companies and in what situations they might be a viable alternative to purchasing tanks outright. 

If you’re opening a new center and trying to anticipate your business, what’s a reasonable amount of paying customers to expect? What about total capacity including free floats? 

Graham and Ashkahn dominate the mic to drop some knowledge on the float family regarding what to expect. 

Graham and Ashkahn share what they think is the most time consuming part of running a float center. And then next most time consuming things, as well. A great episode outlining the realistic challenges in taking on management of a business.

Ashkahn and Graham talk about all the different things that could possibly cause discoloration or odd odors in your float tank solution. There’s any number of things that could be at fault and it’s difficult to suggest it remotely, so instead they answer a handful of similar questions by offering broad troubleshooting advice on how to handle it when something comes up. 

Ashkahn and Graham respond to a follow up question about cleaning the waterline of the float tank without running the risk of contaminating the float tank solution with disinfectant. 

Graham and Ashkahn announce the final episode of the Daily Solutions Podcast which will also be a live call in show, happening November 29th at 3pm PST. Set it on your calendars and call in. More details to follow. 

Float On was built on a culture of bartering. Trading stuff to make sure as many could float as possible. It helped generate lots of goodwill in the community and helped spread word of mouth in the early days. It also led to things like the Art Program, trading floats for art, which has been replicated by float centers all across the world. 

Graham and Ashkahn share their thoughts on barter and why it’s been so successful for them and why they keep doing it even 8 years later.