We’re just past halfway through the entry period for the 2020 Start-a-Center Giveaway, and so excited by the response thus far!
It’s amazing that we get to help one winner make their dreams come true and we’re so excited to help make that happen. There are tons of great ideas among the entries, and some passionate people who are itching to get their float plans started — we already know it’s going to be incredibly difficult to decide on a winner this year.
There’s still over a week remaining to register and enter the Giveaway if you haven’t yet! Registration closes on the 29th, and the last day to enter is January 31st!
Since it’s coming up so soon, we thought we’d take a moment to let you know a bit more about all of the generous sponsors contributing to this year’s grand prize.
We couldn’t have made the Giveaway as amazing as it was this year without each and every one of these float industry allies, and we thank them whole-heartedly for their contribution!
Leveraging their intimate understanding of the float industry, along with their years of more traditional marketing experience, Maximum Floats is able to create marketing campaigns and strategies that help your float center connect with a larger customer base — without having to depend on Groupon or other outside assistance.
Partnered with nearly 70 float centers already, Maximum Floats offers marketing consulting and direct marketing management, and have generously agreed to offer $4000 worth of their services to the winner of the Start-a-Center Giveaway to help ensure their center has a strong marketing foundation right out of the gate.
For more information, and a FREE case study for float center owners, check out their site, Maximum Floats.
The Float Conference and Workshop
Join us at the world’s largest event celebrating floatation therapy and the float industry!
To be held in late 2020, the 9th Annual Float Conference is sure to be filled with more fascinating presentations from leading experts on all things floaty.
Attending the events offers the perfect opportunity to learn more about all the fascinating floaty things in the world as well as meet the community, which is what will keep you coming back year after year. It’s been said many times, but the Conference feels more like a homecoming than a business event.
Check out the Float Conference site to sign up for updates on the 2020 events — and we hope to see you there!
The winner of the Giveaway will receive 2 tickets to the Conference events themselves, as well as 2 tickets to the Start-a-Center Workshop hosted before the events.
Helmbot (formerly Float Helm)
Appointment scheduling, point-of-sale, customer and staff management, marketing automation, and so much more — the Helmbot is almost an entire suite of software in one, offering your business a complete back-end management system.
The winner of the Giveaway will receive 6 months of free Helmbot access once they’re ready to book. In addition, the winner is also welcome to access the software before then at no cost, allowing them to familiarize themselves and their team with the software leading up to launch.
For anyone and everyone, the Helm offers free in-depth tours of the software if you might be interested in learning more.
Creating and managing any business means signing up for near constant responsibility, and with an industry as particular as floating, you’re likely to be one of the few people around who can effectively manage things…which means things are ripe to fall apart if you ever need some time away.
Designed to solve the problem of float center owner burnout, Theta State Agency offers management for your business from experienced and dedicated float center operation experts whenever you might need a vacation, or if any emergencies arise.
Theta State Agency is offering a 4 day Float Center Sitting Package to the winner of the Giveaway, to be arranged whenever they need a much deserved break.
The brainchild of longtime Float Tank Solutions friend, and passionate floatation enthusiast, Bryan Gray, we’re excited to see this project launch.
Float Halo offers a headrest designed specifically for floatation tanks. Allowing the head to rest in a more supine position, the Float Halo is designed to increase your customer’s comfort while floating, by preventing pain and tension from affecting their floats.
The winner of the Giveaway will be offered an initial supply of 10 Float Halos to stock in their float rooms.
Iron Lion Soap has been offering high quality soap products since 2008, handcrafted from time-tested, 100% plant based ingredients. They have offered an initial supply of both their Organic Body Wash and Organic Castille Soap to the Giveaway winner.
Check out the Iron Lion Soap online store to view their full product line.
The Float Tank Cure by Shane Stott
One of the most well known modern publications on floatation, The Float Tank Cure covers author Shane Stott’s personal journey and research into the world of floating, and offers the reader a fascinating insight into what floatation therapy can do for an individual.
The Giveaway winner will receive 10 copies to stock in their center’s library or retail in their shop.
Coincidence Control Publishing
The publishing arm of Float On’s floaty endeavors, Coincidence Control aims to offer high-quality prints of the works of Dr. John C. Lilly, and serves as distributor for the several other float book projects run through Float On over the years. The winner of the Giveaway will receive a copy of each of the currently available prints, all of which are perfect additions to any float center’s library.
The Construction Secret to Soundproofing: Storage Between Float Rooms
If you’ve ever taken a look at our construction materials or gotten advice on soundproofing, you’ve probably heard of the importance of including “air gaps” when building out your center. What that means and why it helps can be a bit of a technical question, and the practical implementation can seem daunting and unreasonable.
Float Conference 2017 Recap
Now that the salt has settled, I’m sharing some thoughts from “The Great Gathering of People Who Really Love Being Alone Sometimes in a Dark, Briny Room,” also known as The Float Conference.
The conference has always been an amazing opportunity to connect with the pulse of the broader float industry and, if this year’s gathering showed us anything, it’s that our collective heartbeat is as strong as ever.
2017 Float Conference Program Introduction
Every year, I have the great pleasure of writing the introduction for the Float Conference program, and every year we share it on our blog so that members of the industry who weren’t able to make the journey out to Portland are able to check it out. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
From all of us at Float Tank Solutions, where our time is measured as the space between two conferences, thank you again for a wonderful year!
– Graham Talley
What? Another Product Announcement? The New and Improved About Float Tanks Guide!
We’ve learned a lot since then, so has the industry and the rest of the world. Floating is no longer considered some obscure practice. The industry has become very well established the world over and is continuing to grow. As such, the About Float Tanks Guide in particular desperately needed updating.
There has been new research, new standards in manufacturing, and as an industry, we have a much better understanding of all things float tank.
Download the latest version today!
Announcing: The 2017 Float Tank Industry Report
In 2014 we started gathering answers to a survey that would eventually become the very first State of the Float Industry Report. We've released one every year since, and this year we (once again) have the most contributions that we've ever had. In total, 193 existing...
Working with a Landlord
If you’re planning on opening up a float center, it’s likely that you’ll end up renting and, therefore, working closely with a landlord. Like any business relationship, it takes communication, discernment, and openness to make a renter-landlord relationship feel truly comfortable.
Everyone involved is taking a risk and the reality is that, when it comes to floating, it’s probably more risk than your average small business – craft shop, bar, hair salon, law office, what-have-you.
This piece also includes a free download – a compilation of support letters from float center landlords!
Employees vs. Independent Contractors. Which is better when offering additional services?
Part of what makes all of this so confusing is there isn’t a one-size-fits-all set of actions that differentiates a standard employee from an independent contractor. Your State regulators, the federal Department of Labor, and the IRS all have their own criteria for what constitutes an “independent contractor”. Here, we’ll just be using the IRS definitions as a sort of jumping off point to the issue. If the status of employees is ever challenged, the IRS determines the status on a case-by-case basis over several criteria by a panel of judges, very similar to American Idol.
Basically it comes down to who is in control of the work. How much control does the company have over the type of job being done vs. how much control does the person providing the service. This manifests in different ways, but to fit the definition of an independent contractor, a service provider really does have to be independent. Beyond just using this guide, you should always consult an HR lawyer if you feel like there’s any confusion or ambiguity.
Basically, the rules fall into three main categories…
I’ll Give you a Float Tuesday for a Massage Today: Floating & Bartering
Whoever said that you can’t get something for Nothing obviously never ran a float center. At Float On, we’ve used bartering as a creative means to meet a wide range of goals and needs. Even as I’m writing this, I’m sipping on coffee that we traded from a shop across...
Financing Your Float Center with Investors
In addition to an increase in bank loans, more and more float centers have been using investors in recent years to finance their operations. Every center’s earning potential varies greatly — but a well-run center with no surprise buildout costs (or re-buildout costs) can do very well for itself.
As a result, people with means (or general interest) are increasingly likely to consider having a financial stake in the float industry without the glorious headache of actually running a shop.
Float Conference Interview
In the midst of all of our blog writing and party planning, I sat down with Ashkahn Jahromi, cofounder of The Float Conference, Float On, and Float Tank Solutions with a few questions about the upcoming Float Conference aka #FloatCon for you social media savvy kids in Twitterland.
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