Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Do you need a business plan if you’re not building a business from the ground up?
Graham and Ashkahn chime in and give a solid “maybe” as a response. It depends on a lot of factors, for sure. Do you already have financing? Are you maintaining the existing business model or revamping it?
Show Resources
FTS Product – Business Plan Package
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Hey, everybody.
Graham: All right, another day, another podcast.
Ashkahn: Yep, yep. We actually have a slogan now, huh?
Graham: Kind of. I’m Graham.
Ashkahn: I’m Ashkahn.
Graham: And today’s question is, “I’m buying an existing float tank …” man, a lot of purchasing float tank questions.
Ashkahn: Recently, yeah.
Graham: Yeah, recently. All right, so, “I’m buying an existing float tank center. Do I still need to have a business plan?” Well-
Ashkahn: Yeah, you should definitely purchase one from some sort of reputable float tank business plan company, I would say. That would be my advice.
Graham: Not all business plans are made equal, okay?
Ashkahn: There’s really only one, I think, that would be justified to purchase.
Graham: Yeah, there’s only one that’s made equal to itself. That’s it. That’s ours.
Well, okay, so there’s two ways to look at this, right? Or I guess there’s just different levels of business plan and business planning, and you didn’t capitalize yours. You obviously mean lower cased business plan.
Ashkahn: The informal.
Graham: Yeah, but should you have a plan of how you’re going to run your business and staff it and market and make a profit and all those kinds of technical details? Absolutely. I mean, you need them. You’re about to run a business, you know?
Ashkahn: You should have a plan.
Graham: Yeah. So, in that sense, you need to plan.
Ashkahn: For your business.
Graham: In the other sense, like, do you need a robust-
Ashkahn: Business Plan.
Graham: …30 page written business plan and five years of projected financials and kind of this more robust, capital B-P Business Plan? I mean, only if you’re financing the purchase of your float center, really. In that sense, it’s the same way as if you were building this from scratch, which is, it’s going to cost money to purchase and you can often get loans or investment for a purchase of something as well, just like you can for building it out. So if you’re doing that, then you probably need to have about the same diligence with your business planning that you would if you were starting from scratch. I guess the nice thing is some of those numbers can be filled in with the business that you’re taking over. Rather than needing to make projections for what your first year is going to be when you’re drawing on a totally blank canvas, you have someone to give those to you, and as far as things to market and what their usual customers are that are coming in.
A lot of these things that are guesses before you’re getting into a new business are solid and, again, should be provided in a really nice form by the people you’re purchasing this thing from. So, it’ll certainly make the planning easier.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I mean, yeah. A lot of times people are making business plans to go to a bank or investors or something like that, and finance the start-up costs, and if you are needing to finance the purchase of another float center, they might ask you for a business plan in that context, too.
Graham: Yeah, they likely will.
Ashkahn: It’s just going to be a different sort of beast in either way, right? When you’re writing a business plan to get a loan to start up a float tank center, you’re talking about, like, “Here’s the type of space I’m going to be looking for, here’s why I think this neighborhood would be good.” You’re making a lot of projections about why you think this area would enjoy a float center and there’s just so much more kind of intangible stuff going on there than if you’re purchasing an existing business that has already a track record of how many customers are coming in. Like, the bank’s probably going to want to know what are you going to do to improve these numbers or get this profitability higher or-
Graham: Or why is buying a float tank center here especially valuable right now?
Ashkahn: Why are they selling it? Why is it even up for sale in the first place? Those are the sorts of questions. And if you’re financing it yourself, this could be a lot more casual. You may just have that information from the float center you’re buying it from and even maybe have operational information.
Graham: I was going to say, an operations guide in that case is almost more … well, I don’t know, there’s still the whole marketing side of things and how are you going to make this valuable and in that sense, it is more operational. It’s kind of like the logistical business plan of how are you going to do this, and rough costs. Like, roughly what are my utility costs going to be per month, and hopefully, like Ashkahn was saying, that’s provided by the center you’re purchasing, and a lot of those variables will be stable. You still need to figure out what the heck you’re going to do when you take over these keys and grab your center. That’s going to exist no matter what.
Ashkahn: But yeah, I mean, with the capital B-P, I wouldn’t … if the center has finances you can look at and the basics of running their place-
Graham: If they’re not going for a loan.
Ashkahn: If they’re not going for the loan. If some of that stuff’s already there, I wouldn’t be tempted to sit down and write a formal 50-page business plan.
Graham: I’m pretty anti-business plan except for the purpose of raising money. I think a lot of that time that you’re going into detailed financial projections for five years could be better spent on-
Ashkahn: Running something in the real world.
Graham: … a little more day-to-day kind of things. So, I think we’re on the exact same page for that. So, again, the answer is maybe, for whether or not you need a business plan, but you definitely need a firm sense of operations and an operational plan for what you’re going to start instituting right when you take over.
Ashkahn: Yeah, especially because you’re flying a plane mid-flight at that point. The thing’s got to keep running from when you take it over.
Graham: Maybe you’ve never been a pilot before.
Ashkahn: Maybe the wing’s a little broken. All right, well, go dream about that for a while, and if you have any other questions, go to FloatTankSolutions.com/podcast.
Graham: Yeah. You can type those in, letter by letter.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and the little typewriter that we place behind our eyeballs will type them into our brain in sync.
Graham: I’m going to think about that now.
Ashkahn: Type that out .
Graham: I can’t get that out of my head. All right.
Ashkahn: Bye, everybody.
Graham: Talk to you guys later.
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Floating in National Media – DSP 298
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Latest Blog Posts
Reflections from the Rise Float Gathering
Over this past weekend, a good chunk of the Float Tank Solutions and Float Conference crew ventured to St. Louis, MO for the first ever Rise Community Float Gathering. Beyond our excitement to see old friends and meet new ones, we were thrilled to be able to attend a float event that we didn’t have to plan.
When it comes to float tanks, we often deal with a lot of the “what” and the “how” of things – what do I need to do to open a float center and how to I make everything work? We write blogs and put out content. We spend our days thinking about conference flowcharts, water chemistry, detailed business plans, soundproof insulation, etc.
Rise, on the other hand, focused on the “why?”
The Story Behind the Float Marketing Forum
Over the past few years, primarily through feedback received from conference attendees and through industry survey responses, float center owners struggled with and wanted a solution to one thing… marketing. It makes sense – if there’s one thing every center needs (besides salt), it’s a solid flow of customers in tanks.
After some brainstorming with Ashkahn, we’ve decided the best solution for this year was to host a series panels covering key marketing topics that will provide the biggest impact in growing your float center business.
Introducing: The Float Conference Marketing Forum.
Announcing the 2nd Ever Start-a-Center Giveaway WINNER!
In what was one of the most difficult decisions that we had to make as a team… and after sorting through nearly 200 entries… we’ve decided upon a winner in our second ever Start-a-Center Giveaway.
Read more to learn who we’ll be guiding through the process in starting a float tank center in their community.
Gut your space before construction!
One line we don’t think you should cross is this: as much as possible, when building out your float center, gut it completely. Start from scratch.
At least then the mistakes you make are your own and your building will hold fewer surprises down the line. There are many benefits that you may not think of immediately. In this post, we’ll guide you through some of them.
