Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
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.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Alright.
Ashkahn: Hey everybody. My name is Ashkahn.
Graham: And I am Graham, and today’s question is. How many managers would a woodchuck chuck if necessary. “How many managers do I need if I want to get out of daily operations? How many managers do I need to take my job?”
Ashkahn: How many managers?
Graham: How many other people make up a single one of me. So I think we can get this. Thank you for submitting that question. I wasn’t trying to make fun of it. It’s a very good question. What would you say? At the least, zero.
Ashkahn: To replace us? At the most? I guess, the full human population?
Graham: That would be yes. Now that we have those upper and lower limits …
Ashkahn: So, I think it’s probably somewhere in between those.
Graham: Brilliant! So what do we … we don’t work the shop.
Ashkahn: No.
Graham: How many managers do we have?
Ashkahn: We kind of have like-
Graham: Kind of have is already the start to another great answer there, huh?
Ashkahn: Kind of like two and a third. We have like one full manager and two like two-thirds managers.
Graham: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Ashkahn: You know what I mean?
Graham: Yeah, so we have like, yes, you know a normal business would call it as Tacos and Taco Supremes.
Ashkahn: That’s the hierarchy we have and that we Float On. So, we have one taco supreme at the top and then, right below that person is two just normal tacos and below that is just, kind of, the rest of our employees. So, there’s really, kind of, three classes of people.
Graham: It’s really hard to get away from needing one taco supreme, at the least.
Ashkahn: It’s basically, like one person could do it, but.
Graham: Yeah. One is the loneliest number.
Ashkahn: Yeah, one is the lonely, and it’s just like, sometimes what the manager person is doing is like covering shifts that don’t get covered and going in when things are broken, and stuff like that. So, if you only have one person who is kind of that safety net for putting fires out, then sometimes they are not available. You can’t expect someone to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People have to have days off or go on vacations or sleep or all sorts of numbers of non-work activities.
Graham: Get sick.
Ashkahn: Unfortunately they have to do because they’re humans and not robots. Once we get robots, we will be able to answer this question then.
Graham: Oh yeah. One robot. Done.
Ashkahn: It’s nice to at least have two. That way, between the two of them, there’s a lot more just coverage that can happen. It’s just a nicer work environment, too. I think it’s just nice when you’re in charge of something to have someone to bounce ideas off of and really just have that back and forth. I think it just helps refine ideas and make sure that you don’t do something totally crazy. That, to me, is a nice number.
Graham: There is a good lesson there too. Whenever possible, having back up or redundancy in different positions is ideal for all of those reasons. Or, on the other side, if someone quits. If you’ve trained up one manager and they have been working at your store for four years and they know the ins and outs of everything and then they quit. That’s a really painful transition.
Ashkahn: Right. Or get sick, you know, all sorts of things even if they don’t want to leave your company. There are so many things that can happen. They can break their leg and they need to deal with that for two weeks or something like that.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: It’s having that redundancy. It’s one of the really tough things about running a business of our size. It’s just very difficult for us to have good redundancy in place, because we have such a small group of people to begin with.
Graham: We did have two managers for a while. That did also work great. Then, having this one main manager and two sub-managers or one Taco Supreme and two Tacos has been working out well.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s a different model around those, sort of, numbers, I think, can all work out as long as you have things distributed well.
Graham: Initially starting out, we didn’t even want managers. We really tried that for a while. Even as calling things by their taco names, is us really still not liking the idea of a manager, specifically.
Ashkahn: We do love tacos.
Graham: And we love tacos, yeah. But, there are things that are just really hard to, like tasks, that are hard to get addressed without having someone who’s in that higher level of responsibility and often getting a higher level of pay as a result. Like Ashkahn said earlier, a lot of those involve things like covering emergency sick time, going in when something breaks in the middle of the night to get the pumps back up and running. Basically, being that around the clock kind of safety net. You know?
Ashkahn: Yeah. Or just deciding something every once in a while. You know? We have a lot of fear of authoritarian decision making happening where if there’s one person at the top just making decisions willy-nilly, but in reality, sometimes people just don’t want to have to make the decisions themselves. There are certain decisions where everyone else in the company is like, “Great, we’ve discussed two or three options. You just choose whichever one sounds good.”
Having someone to, at the end of the day, make a decision or two here or there just to decide on something and keep moving forward is a useful thing to have too. So having someone who feels like “Okay, the buck stops here.” I’ve heard a lot of “We’ve all come up with a bunch of good ideas but we can only choose one of them. So, let’s go this direction.” I think our model works really nicely now too. Especially with the two two-thirds managers.
Graham: Tacos, yeah.
Ashkahn: Two tacos. Because, it turns out almost that we needed more than high level decision making. It was flexibility. More people to be available to go in and deal with missing shifts or things breaking or having to order something at the last minute or whatever. Having three people instead of two to spread out that availability. I think our shop functions just as well as it did before. I think their lives are a bit easier. It’s still a little less stress on people individually.
Graham: And it actually, ultimately, saved us a little money on payroll.
Ashkahn: Actually, it did.
Graham: Doing it that way.
Ashkahn: By changing and paying more, like, all three of those people got paid a slight pay increase when we did this. It’s still saving us money.
Graham: Yeah. Which, of course, depend on what the heck you are paying to begin with. It’s almost arbitrary to our circumstances, but worth mentioning.
Ashkahn: Really, you want to start this process early. Getting people trained on, especially like, how the pumps and filtration systems work and things like that. It just takes some time.
Graham: Yep. How you like your breakfast, since one of the managerial responsibilities is to cook breakfast for us every morning. You know?
Ashkahn: Yeah, the shade of brown your coffee is. Like, how much mocha that goes into it.
Graham: Yeah. Well, before you even hire a manager, you should start this process of grooming, or I guess shadowing is almost more what it is. It’s just when you’re doing stuff that only you know how to do, make sure there is someone else around also doing it with you. It’s a great motto.
Ashkahn: Yeah. That’s the nice thing about having a couple people, too. They’re kind of always shadowing each other. If one person leaves, it’s not as debilitating for you as having just a single person there who could leave.
Graham: Yeah. Even though we only have one main manager right now, the fact that there are, sorry, Taco Supreme. The fact that we have these other Tacos’ means that if our Taco Supreme takes off, you know, one of those Tacos can become Supreme themselves. A lot easier than you can just take a normal employee and turn them directly into a Taco Supreme.
Ashkahn: Yeah, the sour cream.
I guess that’s our recommendation. Is, two to three. It seems.
Graham: Yep and use food-based comparisons, rather than straight managerial titles.
Ashkahn: It really spices things up. Great.
Graham: I really enjoyed this episode.
Ashkahn: Question answered. We did it. Done.
Graham: I’m glad we all came together here today.
Ashkahn: In the bag. Alright. If you have more questions that we can just crush like we did this one, you can go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Graham: That’s it.
Ashkahn: That’s the whole URL there. Yeah. Go there.
Graham: Yeah. Go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast. There’s a little surprise for you there, too.
Ashkahn: You don’t even have to type in the name. Just go there.
Graham: If you go there, whatever day you are listening to this, there is a little surprise there for you. You should check it out.
Ashkahn: Yeah. I don’t even know what it is. That’s the surprise.
Graham: Yeah, that’s right. You should, you know, just go take a peek.
Ashkahn: Alright. Okay.
Graham: It’s a box asking for questions, though. I ruined the surprise. I ruined the surprise. Alright. Bye everyone.
Ashkahn: Bye.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Are Tankless Water Heaters the Best? – DSP 270
Graham and Jake take on talking about Tankless or “On Demand” water heaters today. They break down a lot of the benefits of them compared to storage water heaters like the fact that they provide a nearly limitless source of hot water, require less energy consumption, etc. They’re not perfect though, and any float center considering one should look closely on how best to implement them. Jake shares some of the pitfalls of them as well as how to maximize their usefulness.
Should Float Centers use Light or Heavy Gauge Studs? – DSP 269
Still no Ashkahn today. He’s taking a couple of post-conference days to himself.
Jake and Graham are on the scene though to answer construction questions, though. Even the straight forward ones, like today. Jake informs us which to choose when doing construction, light or heavy gauge studs when constructing a float center, while getting a little sidetracked when comparing wooden and metal studs.
Construction to Make Your Life Easier – DSP 268
Graham and Jake cover a wide range of construction tips to make running a float center easier. Everything from making sure you have extra storage to installing mop closets with sinks in them for dealing with heavy duty chemicals.
The advice is pretty much a shotgun approach of tips, tricks, and hard lessons learned throughout the years.
Draining Float Tanks into Septic Systems – DSP 267
Graham and Jake tackle the difficulties of draining float tanks and how that process can differ based on different municipalities, different water treatment systems, or whether you’re using a septic system or not.
Water treatment typically involves whole contained ecosystems and highly concentrated epsom salt water can impact that pretty drastically. The guys provide good tips for each type of system and what to be prepared for if you’re operating in a rural area with a septic system.
The Difference Between STC and Decibels – DSP 266
Post-Conference Ashkahn is still out of the recording studio, but fortunately Jake is keeping Graham company in there.
Graham and Jake break down the differences between decibels and STC ratings, two very important to understand when figuring out soundproofing. There’s a lot to digest in this episode, but fortunately the guys keep it easy to understand by providing a broad level overview of the different concepts.
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.
This post will focus on the smaller communities in B.C. that are bringing floating to new people every day. We also get to visit Canadian manufacturer Pro Float. They’re relatively new to the scene, just opening up earlier this year – another exciting sign of the growth in the industry.
