How to increase revenue FAST!
As we all can agree Sport is a very difficult market to earn money in. As a Sport business owner I know it takes serious effort just to increase small amounts of revenue here and there, but why is this? Well let’s explore the inherent problems in the first place – Sport is a recreation. It is normally a hobby or a just a fun past time for our customers to use. It is also LIMITED. In order to play a sport you need numerous things, for example, the initial skill to play it in the first place, then you have certain fitness levels, seasons, equipment, usually a team or a partner to play with.. The list can go on.
So now that we have hashed through the underlining issues with why sport is usually a difficult area to make money within the limitations of a small business / small facility we can then move forward and explore quick easy fixes to your business to either increase participation or current numbers using different proven techniques.
Let’s begin with the good old participation problem, let me begin by first saying please leave all arguments at the door about the fundamental issue with participation which would be national interest. Let’s focus on the smaller more relevant issue at hand – TARGET AUDIENCE! Who are we chasing? For example I personally come from the Squash world, having worked in business owning and operations for years within the niche market of Squash I can tell you I’ve seen what ‘tough numbers’ actually looks like. In just the last three years the sport has lost over 100,000 participants or a decline of 25% of its overall players. OUCH… And don’t even get me started on the world wide decline since the 80s, it make me sick even thinking about it… but back on topic! How do we target the correct audience to maximize your numbers and sports capacity?
It’s simple! Start young. Approach every nearby school and do not stop pushing for attention until you have at least one class out of each school listening to one of your top coach’s talk about the coolest parts of your sport! With the same logic, this helps to increase junior interest in your sport which is of paramount importance when you play the long game – which is what your business should be about. THE LONG GAME!
Okay cool so now you’ve got a few school groups coming into the facility allow your staff to use your lead conversion system (Information can be found within our services page) once you allow that to turn into its own self-sustaining system with trained staff you can focus on where the immediate source of revenue should be coming from – adults! And they shouldn’t be referred to as customers from here on in, NO. They are should be called members. Your overall goal is to set up a membership system within your sporting facility that allows for your ‘Current customers’ to be converted into your ‘Membership’ Scheme (Again you can view different types of membership scheme and how to effectively set them up within our services page). So you have successfully converted existing customers into fully pledged athlete members in your facility but let’s refocus on the big NEW PLAYERS which ultimately should be every business owner’s focus. New faces through those glass doors. How do you do this? MARKETING. How many times has a new customer walked into your business and said ‘OMG I didn’t know there was a Squash Centre here’ with your response being ‘This business and me for that matter have been here since the 60s…’ in which they would normally fluff their hair and wander off… You need to create an aggressive effective marketing plan and IMPLEMENT IT step by step. This is the part you’re going to roll your eyes and hate me. You have to SPEND money to MAKE MONEY… BUT… Spend money smart, don’t just go down to the Star casino and throw it all on black.. Create a clear and concise budget on how much your business can afford to invest over each quarter and do what we all hate… HIRE a marketing guru. NAH you don’t need a guru, you just need an experienced marketer that is able to apply industry skills and techniques to any given applicable scenario. Which I guarantee there are plenty out there… for more information on this refer to our Services page.
