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Art of the Float

Where float centers thrive

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Groupon – Bringing more customers back to your business

July 24, 2013 by Dylan Calm 7 Comments

Daily Deals (sites like Groupon, LivingSocial, and local equivalents) are a popular offering from float tank centers, and consumers tend to gobble them up. When a float center runs a Groupon or other daily deal we are able to profit immediately and do not feel a strain on our resources when customers redeem them. After all, it costs nearly the same amount to maintain an empty float room as it does when someone floats with us.

That’s all well and good but the overall aim of Groupon is to gain customers, right? How well does Groupon work for client retention? How can we create a higher retention rate?

Measuring the overall effectiveness of Groupons is a difficult task. The Float Shoppe has had a very positive response rate from customers. According to Groupon’s own feedback tracking, 97% of customers would recommend us to a friend. 99% of Living Social customers had a postive experience, with 95% of customers saying they would return. Yet, despite the positive feedback we have found that overall most customers do not come back.

If so many daily deal customers enjoy the service, why aren’t they all coming back? Something I’ve learned from others in the wellness industry is that people are terrible at self-care. This holds true with float tanks as well. No matter how much a person enjoys their float, they are very unlikely to book again once they leave the building. If they do, it can be a very long time before they come back.

Bridging the Gap

Since opening, we have attempted to bridge the gap between someone’s first float and potential subsequent floats by offering a ‘three 90-minute floats for the price of two’ starter package ($120) and it has worked very well for us. [Read more…] about Groupon – Bringing more customers back to your business

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: Groupon

Opening Day, Opening Year

July 17, 2013 by Dylan Calm 9 Comments

In my mind I was surrounded by my failures. Sandra was still working full time as nurse while spending every free moment working on the Shoppe, and I felt the weight of completing construction on my shoulders. All around me I saw walls without sheetrock, unfinished tiling and rooms with no electrical; literal physical representations of the failures that had manifested in my mind. Beyond that, there was a greater issue – we were running out of money. If we didn’t open soon, we would run out of finances and never have a shot at opening. We put all of our energy into the two float rooms that were closest to completion. With the weight of failure on my shoulders, we opened The Float Shoppe to the public on December 14th, 2011.

Floatarium Plumbing
Trying to rebuild a broken pump system days before opening

[Read more…] about Opening Day, Opening Year

Filed Under: Bio

No Stopping

July 10, 2013 by Dylan Calm 8 Comments

As I drove Sandra home the night of my second float I turned to her and said, “Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we open a float center?”. She looked at me and nodded. “Absolutely”. Our minds were working in such unison that to this day I don’t think we even needed to exchange words, we still would have known what was next. I had assumed that our parents would warn us about going into business together, but the warnings never came. Instead, we were filled with encouragement and excitement from both sides of our family.

As the idea of opening our own float center began to take root, Sandra let me quit work and focus full-time on opening our float business.

What was next? Research. A LOT of research. Costs of parts, potential rent costs, electricity estimates, staff wages, maintenance. How much does salt cost!? For months our thoughts were on floating; nothing else entered our minds.
Approximately three months after my second float we had a business plan that was dialed in to the pennies.

One of our first floor plans for the 2nd story of the shoppe
One of our first floor plans for the 2nd story of the shoppe

[Read more…] about No Stopping

Filed Under: Bio

My Second Float

June 27, 2013 by Dylan Calm 4 Comments

I had been working in IT for about 5 years and was absolutely sick of it. I would listen to podcasts throughout most of my day to stay sane. One of those podcasts was The Joe Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan would talk about this sound and light isolated “float tank” he owned that was filled with salt water. It sounded amazing and the introspection that he got out of his experiences sounded like something I wanted for myself.

I looked online to see if there was anywhere in Portland that had a sensory deprivation tank. I found one gentleman named Chris who had a float tank in his home. He let people float in his tank for a small sum of cash, so I called him and booked an appointment. When I told Sandra about getting naked into a float tank all by myself in someone else’s apartment, she basically told me that it wouldn’t be happening. I cancelled my appointment.

What seemed like just a few weeks later (it may have been months now that I think back on it) Sandra surprised me with several Groupons for floats at an official float center called Float On. We scheduled our appointments and took the plunge. I’ll save you from the story of my first float, as it was actually not very special. In fact, it was actually largely disappointing. “Well” I thought to myself “that was a lot of hype” and was done with it. What I hadn’t realized was that Sandra had bought about a dozen Groupons and really wanted to try it again. Eventually she convinced me to go in for a second attempt, and that float changed my life forever.  [Read more…] about My Second Float

Filed Under: Bio

The Love Story

June 25, 2013 by Dylan Calm 2 Comments

Years ago I had moved several times within a year and a half and I was getting sick of it. I was in my mid twenties and I felt like I didn’t have stability. I decided I wanted to find a living situation that was permanent, or at least one that would work for a good long time. Although I never did find permanency in my living situation, this quest did lead me to find permanent purpose, passion and love.

I hopped onto Craigslist and quickly found a well written, very warm post from a girl looking for a roommate. I gave her a call and she let me know that she was only looking for female roommates. For some reason though, she said she may make an exception for me. We agreed on a date for her to show me around.

Her name was Sandra. We immediately knew that we were simpatico and agreed I would move in. In the following months we became very close. Enjoying eachothers company to the point of waiting at home, simply hoping that the other wouldn’t go out with friends after work and instead would come home so that we could continue sharing, laughing and connecting.

Dylan & Sandra

[Read more…] about The Love Story

Filed Under: Bio

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