Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
This episode is chock full of tips and tricks to test the salty waters of the float industry and help you decide if there’s a good market in your area for a float center. Find out what kind of response you’re looking for and how to get the one you want.
Show Resources
FTS BLOG: TAM, SAM, SOM
FTS BLOG: Before your center has a location, get online
Find a tank at: Usedfloattanks.com
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: We got a question for you today, which is, “My biggest question is whether or not there is a market for this in my area. Not really sure how to gauge the demand.” The old market demand gauge, as they call it in the business. That’s a tricky one.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: So fortunately there’s a lot of different ways to go about this, and the other good news is that so far, if you don’t already have float centers in your area, there’s probably gonna be a demand for it.
Ashkahn: Yeah, at least in a place like the U.S., Canada, Australia, things like that where there’s been a lot of press, there’s been a lot of float centers opening up in big cities, there’s been a decent raise in awareness in the last three to five years, something like that. At this point, the word about float tanks is starting to spread, and if you’re the first person in your area, there likely is some demand for it.
Graham: Yeah, and it turns out that they’re actually just really appealing, despite sounding weird and maybe kind of hard to market, a lot of the initial market tests that float centers do turn up really positive, and there are in fact a lot of people who say they’d be interested in trying something like that out. So what you might want to actually do, and it’s interesting, ’cause I guess the question, I’m not sure what city this is related to, but it differs a little bit if you’re in a small town versus a bigger city, and kind of everything in between as well, for what you even have access to to be able to test out your market. I would say one that’s really traditional is just checking for similar activities. Are there a lot of yoga studios around? Are there other forms of alternative wellness that are being practiced in your area? And not having as many around isn’t a deal breaker or anything like that, but the more things that you can point to, that’s like, “Hey, people have a disposable income, and they’re spending it on their health and forms of wellness,” is obviously a really good sign.
If you can’t find some, lots of times you can find information like that through your Chamber of Commerce. You can also look up some different websites. There’s one called City Data, and Facebook, actually, ends up being a really nice way to gauge the interests and different activities of people in your area, so just when you’re going to do ads, you can target different groups and through that process, you can see how many different people on Facebook in your area like or are groups with those kind of topics, which is kind of nice. It’s sort of a little hack on the ad audience side to be able to validate something.
Ashkahn: I suppose you could even run some ads for float tanks, see what sort of interest that actually garners without having to open up a center.
Graham: Yep, for sure. If there aren’t any float centers in your area already, then just taking out general ads, putting up a website, seeing what you can do, gauging interest like Ashkahn said is great. If there are other float centers, you can even do what we did at Float On when we were starting up, which is pair up with one of the existing centers and see if you can’t sell floats to their center yourself as kind of an indication that you’re able to market floating successfully and get people interested in it and actually get the people you’re talking to to not only say that they’d go float, but to actually bite the bullet and pay for one. Really, the philosophy here and why I think that’s such a good idea is you’re trying to get as far down the pipeline as you can go in actually getting people to spend money on floats, proving that that’s what they would do if you had a center that was up and running, without spending the money on a float center yourself. So as far as you can get them along that process today.
Ashkahn: Yeah, because there’s a big difference between someone saying they’ll do something and actually putting the cash down to do it.
Graham: Yeah. For sure. Just in general, too, it’s one of those, for some reason in a lot of business classes especially high school and undergraduate, they have you do market surveys and fill out these paper questionnaires you give around to people for your business ideas to assess interest in them, and just time and again in psychological studies, people’s answers to questionnaires like that, especially if you’re personally standing in front of them and they know they’re filling out a questionnaire about your business idea, are just gonna be skewed, right? People feel awkward. They don’t just want to say your idea’s crap, and even if they do think it’s an awesome idea, we’re just terrible at knowing ourselves, so if you’re filling out a questionnaire and it’s like, “Would you go float?” That means so much less than them actually giving you an email address to join a mailing list, or better than that, actually paying money for a float, just not at your center because you don’t have one yet.
Other ways to gauge demand in the area, this goes just a step further than doing that, selling float to someone else’s float center, but stops short of opening your own float center, which is get a float tank in your house, or in a friend’s house or in your mom’s basement or whatever.
Ashkahn: Or an enemy’s house, you know?
Graham: Install a float tank horribly in your enemy’s house, just wait for it to be destroyed by salt. But if you have a float tank that you’re using for personal use that you can bring people into, possibly even start charging a little bit of money for people who you don’t know quite as well to come in, that’s a great way, paid or unpaid actually, getting people in the tank, measuring their responses, again, great way to judge the market.
Ashkahn: It helps for a lot of stuff too, I mean it helps you get a handle on operations and get a good sense for what running a float tank is actually going to be like, and it allows your friends and family and all these people who want to support you to try it out, and then be able to go spread the word not just as a, “Oh yeah, my cousin’s doing this crazy thing,” or “I tried it and it was really interesting.” So there’s a lot of benefits to getting a float tank in your house, startup model.
Graham: Yeah. Another one is just that the used tank market right now is pretty good. If you’re trying to sell a used tank, there’s more people out there looking for used float tanks than there are used float tanks on the market. So if you do get a float tank in your house, you decide eventually this isn’t for you, you don’t want to open up a center, you can always resell it and get a pretty good value on it. Although the cost is high, it’s much less than starting a center and there’s actually a good chance that you recoup that even if you don’t push forward with your plans.
Other ways to gauge, this sounds silly and it’s along the lines of a survey or something, but in a very informal sense, just talking to people and getting a sense for how excited they get. If you’re talking to someone and they’re like, “Oh, that sounds interesting,” call that a loss. That’s not the kind of interest that I’m talking about, but if you start talking to someone and they’re like, “Oh my God, where’s the nearest one? Three hours away? Great. What do you want to do next weekend? We should go out there.” If people are actually just getting thrilled about the idea of floating from their conversations with you, that’s a pretty informal piece of data but it’s a really good sign and you can kinda gauge that just as you’re going around. That was another way that at Float On we definitely tested before opening.
All right, anything else to add? I’m trying to gauge your excitement for this question right now. Cool, no I think all of those are good. The biggest thing is just don’t trust something that someone blindly puts down. Try to get some kind of commitment whether it’s having them put their name down saying they will float once you open up, giving you their email address to join a mailing list, or in an ideal situation, actually having money exchange hands for them getting a float and having that be the proof of concept that you are able to do.
If you have any more questions for us, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast. All right, talk to you guys later. Bye.
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Latest Blog Posts
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #24
Alberta is often called the Texas of Canada. Part large oil industry, part cattle country.
Don’t Mess With Alberta!
At the base of the Rocky Mountains, replete with an Olympic Stadium, Calgary is a world-class destination for winter sports. The float community developed here similarly to Edmonton – there wasn’t anything nearby except for one or two residential float tanks, and then, in a short period of time, several centers opened all at once. Instead of competing, they’ve decided to work together and have developed one of the tightest knit float communities we’ve seen. They even have monthly Float Dinners, much like we do with the float centers in Portland. They don’t keep meeting minutes, so it’s hard to determine what they talk about at these dinners; my guess would be salt, the effects of salt on various substances, and how salty salt damage can make someone salty.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #23
After Montana, we blazed our way back into Canada. The drive was long, but the scenery was beautiful. We followed the Rockies north, driving up to Edmonton. It’s a bit of a detour but, there are so many float centers in Edmonton, it seemed crazy not to stop by.
The city itself is primarily made up of workers from the oil fields – high risk, high income jobs that fuel the economy. At least until recently. Our visit was right in the middle of the Fort McMurray wildfire which has displaced a lot of the workforce, forcing 100,000 people to leave their homes. Many came to Edmonton, being the nearest metropolitan area to Fort McMurray. Some already split their time between the two cities, living in Edmonton and traveling to Fort McMurray for weeks or months at a time for work.
It’s understood that, in economic hardship, luxury commodities are typically the first thing people cut back on. Surprisingly, this doesn’t seem to be the case for floating. In fact, more people seem to be trying it to help alleviate the stress, many centers even offering free or discounted services to those displaced in an effort to help in a small way.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #22
We’ve got two more stops in Colorado Springs before heading west. It’s a town known for its military base and long history of weapons testing. With such a large military presence, it comes as no surprise that the float center owners here are veterans, themselves.
After that, we shoot across to Salt Lake City. Utah is filled with gorgeous sights, from breathtaking lakes to stunning painted hills. With an international landmark famous for its effects on buoyancy, Salt Lake City should be pretty familiar with the concept of floating. With five different float centers, and the manufacturer of the Zen Tent out there, there could be some cause and effect.
After that, we head up into Idaho and Montana to close out the Central United States portion of our Tour. We’ll follow the Rocky Mountains north, taking in the scenery along the way.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #21
Denver has been home to a vibrant float community for a long time. Some of the earliest commercial centers that started up in the ‘70s and ‘80s were out here. 30 years is a long time, and most of the old centers aren’t around anymore, but there’s a conscious community that has been floating since the old days and they love how much the industry has evolved and grown.
