Good stuff, Dylan.

Sounds like our orientation process is a lot like yours. In fact, here’s an orientation guide we put together for our staff to lean on. Might be useful to others?

https://docs.google.com/a/olyfloat.com/document/d/1D5uHXaF7cqUd9ufivomze53mF5tBPDitw1-Yeq93CYY/edit?usp=sharing

For my part, I tend to do a long orientation. Typically at least 10 minutes. With a good conversation coming from the client, it might be 20 minutes. I’ve never had anybody complain about it taking too long, or finding any of it irrelevant. There’s some judgement that obviously needs to be exercised; you can’t just drone on about all the geeky details that we find interesting if someone’s eyes have rolled into the back of their skulls out of boredom, or if they simply want to get in and float. But, generally speaking, what I’ve found is that people who are well educated about HOW floating is working tend to stick with it longer. It provides their direct experiential wisdom about how its working for them with an intellectual framework that can help them work through that initial period when they’re adjusting to the new environment and might not necessarily be consciously aware of any immediate physiological or mental benefit. My experience is that the majority of people don’t want the hands off approach; for most people, it’s new, it’s fun, it’s maybe a little intimidating at first, and they want to talk about it and have some friendly guidance. People going into the centers that have the more “clinical” (or zen or blank slate or whatever you want to call the aesthetic) approach, where there’s only minimalist functional orientation, will still have a good float. But without understanding, intellectually, what’s going on in their bodies and minds when they float, they’re probably less likely to come back than those who do. That’s my take, at least. I consider myself to be in the intimacy marketing business; we’re building relationships, and we’re here to help people get the absolute most out of their float experience for their own personal benefit and development. I don’t know how that can fully happen if we don’t engage with people right from the get go.

That’s my 18 cents on the matter.

Keep up the good work!