 Thanks everyone. So firstly we just want to give a huge thanks to Graham and Ashconn because you know they're just so awesome from building a great float center at Float On that really embodies the spirit of this industry to you know starting the apprenticeship program that starts showing people on their journey to opening a center as we did to creating the helm to bring everyone together here at the conference it's just they're totally leaders by example in the truest sense of that term so thank you guys for existing and again we thank you to everyone here it's always you know every day we get up and we're thankful to be part of this industry it's so unique everyone's just so appreciative of teamwork and collaboration so with that we'd like to share a little bit with you about how we keep our tanks full perfect thanks John yeah so who are we like Ashconn said some of you know us I'm sure a lot of you don't know us this is Sean my name is Jesse and we are from Float Toronto our story is a lot like some of yours we discovered floating about six years ago and like many of you something just clicked we eventually began cultivating a vision for our own center that we would one day open at the time we had jobs that weren't totally fulfilling and it was our constant reminders to each other that we still haven't opened a float center that eventually accelerated the dream into a reality so we've been open for about two years now and we've hosted over 25,000 floats and we have just over 300 members to go along with our five float tanks so being asked to come up here and speak about our experience is extremely humbling sitting down and reflecting on all the different ways we've built momentum around the center has really been a great exercise for us it's given us an opportunity to really solidify and reinforce all of the things that we've done that we've done right in our mind and things that have really brought the center to life so these are the things that have worked for us I'm sure every center operator in here has several techniques and strategies that keep new floaters coming in and we learned a ton of things from the centers that opened up before us so we definitely encourage you to do the same talk to as many people as you can see what jives with you and then really like mix your own ideas into the mix so keeping the tanks full how to attract and maintain a steady stream of buoyant bodies this is really the key right here keeping the tanks full an empty tank is a lonely tank once you get someone to the center the float and the experience that you've created around the shop will speak for itself and people will become regular floaters the regular floaters then become part of your marketing team as they spread the word and if they're really good at spreading the word you might decide to bring them onto the team and make them an ambassador and I'll touch more on that in a second so we believe that keeping the tanks full is a result of us harnessing our passion for floating and focusing our marketing strategies on the demographics who are most likely to also enjoy the experience so we focus most of our energy on people who have a perceived interest in floating or a similar interest instead of focusing on a more general public audience so here are the some of the ways that we attract new clients free floats giving on a free float is an amazing way to introduce someone to the float tank and we encourage you to be more liberal than you probably are thinking when it comes to giving them out we don't mean walking down the street and flagging people down we mean mindfully giving floats to people you connect with who seem genuinely interested in the experience it introduces people to floating someone who might not have scheduled the float on their own so many times we've had people say to us how much they love their float and that they probably wouldn't have come in if it hadn't been for the free float many of these people have gone on to become regular floaters this is what I meant by perceived interest you meet someone you talk about floating you see that they're interested and then you can remove all possible barriers to entry by simply giving them a float then they come in and now you have a new floater it starts a ripple effect of awareness so between word of mouth and social media the ripple effect is vast when someone floats you're not making one person aware of floaters you're making you're starting a chain reaction of awareness that stretches beyond measure all from simply giving out a float it's easy you can prepare floats to go along with your brochure and keep them with you or your software system might have some form of instant capability like the helm bot a feature made available through the helm which we use and it is the best it allows us to send a float directly to someone from our phones to their email on the spot so you don't have to remember anyone's email address they don't have to remember what your name was or how to contact you they're gonna open up their email they're gonna see the float they can book it right then it's an awesome thing to do it's a great tool to have in your pocket you're going to make someone's day and you're also making a great first impression as someone who really stands behind their business for your staff and your ambassadors it's empowering to be able to hand out floats when they're out and about and floating comes up keeping the tanks full was one of the first things that Graham and Ashkahn told us when we were opening and we really took it to heart giving out floats is definitely part of the puzzle your community the momentum of our center developed in harmony with the community that surrounds it our staff our ambassadors our close friends in the neighborhood along with our regular floaters have become the identity of the shop the center has become a social hub where like minded people are connecting the community surrounding the center is what people will see when they come in it's part of what will keep them coming back be to connect with a certain staff member again to continue an interesting conversation or to learn more about float tanks here are some ways we've created a community around the center we have a we keep a pan for little in the store front with a little sign over that says what is floating this way when anyone walks by who's running what's going on inside can simply grab it and have all their questions answered without having to walk into the shop it also saves your staff from having to answer all of the initial questions that most people have about floating the pamphlet is a great thing to get into someone's hands probably the best thing actually because it actually explains the whole experience in detail and then they can show all their friends and family and not worry about remembering all the procedures and the benefits we have an energy exchange so we do a weekly deep clean and a maintenance day where we have a mixture of staff and volunteers that come in and help us prepare the center for the week and the volunteers get to learn more about floating in exchange for free float we get some help around the shop the whole program serves as a sort of pool for hiring when needed and as the cherry on top the whole deep clean scenario creates a social buzz that is based around floating which is definitely a plus we have staff who love floating and they float often so your staff will automatically become your first line ambassadors both in and out of the shop if your staff don't love floating how are they going to be able to convince new customers to give it a shot as well in terms of our ambassadors is something that we let happen really organically so they're in basically enthusiastic floaters who became our friends and they are people who we feel who really feel compelled to spread the word without having to be asked so they believe in the cause and we sort of recognize this and certain people who are especially in like other social realms who you know will may come into contact with people who we want now they have the ability to give out a float spread the word and it's something that's been hugely helpful for us. So all of our staff and our ambassadors are all set up on the helm bot to give away floats at their discretion. So we have approximately 20 people out there out and about in the city who at any given moment in time can meet someone give them a float send them into the center for their first experience. So up here we have some ambassadors and some staff members partnerships. So these are some businesses that we've collaborated with and associating ourselves with other reputable establishments in the city has proven to be extremely helpful. So they're not just other businesses. These are other social hubs for like minded people. So each one is a portal which leads to the float. Some of these partnerships are sort of formal and others aren't all of these relationships developed in a very organic way that centers around a healthy lifestyle and the love for floating. So we have some reciprocal benefits between us and the juice bar across the street. Our pamphlets can be found sitting in some of these places. Some of the people who own these places are activated on the helm bot to give away floats and some of them offer discounts to their clients floating in the media. Although floating is still fairly niche it is unquestionably bursting into the mainstream in many capacities. Many influential people have taken up the practice and it's also starting to make its way into movies and television. So here are some of the more notable appearances of float tanks and online and in the media. Of course we have Rogan popular Simpsons episode where Lisa and Homer go for a float. There was a documentary on vice that got a lot of attention and my personal favorite was when the MVP of the NBA Steph Curry came out as a floater earlier this year. And here's one of the more recent appearances of float tanks in the media. And I know what you're thinking not quite as sexy as Dr. Feinstein's circular tank. Still pretty cool though. And one of our good friends is actually a film producer who's just about to start a fairly large production on a film involving float tanks which is really cool. So we'll definitely share that with everybody. And I just wanted to point out with these bigger media outlets that the appearance of floating in these bigger media outlets really lets us know that we all are definitely working together because as you know some someone becomes interested in floating the first thing they're going to do is go online check out where the nearest float tank is to them and go in for their first float. So it's another reminder of how we're working together. So when Ashconn first asked us to give a talk on our marketing strategies here I'll admit we had some mixed feelings not because of the time and effort it was going to take to prepare this but just because I felt like it was going to be a bit awkward to get up in front of this crowd and talk about marketing. There's no way around it. It's an inherently tricky subject for our industry. We're all bombarded with ads every day and in a way what everyone in this room is trying to do is offer an escape from that noise. So naturally it can feel a bit counterintuitive to actively contribute to it. But the reality is that we collectively as an industry and individually as small businesses are competing every day for people's time, attention and ultimately their money with other things that are inevitably probably less good for them. And in a sense our marketing is actually analogous to the service we offer. While floating offers some yin to the yang of busy overstimulated lives float center marketing naturally advocates taking a break you know embracing silence specifically seeking less stimulation and in this sense it provides some yin to the dominant yang in the world of advertising. Now the good news is that there's never been a better time to be a small business specifically when it comes to marketing. Think of it this way so with traditional forms of marketing like TV, radio, newspaper, giant corporations like say Nike, GM, Verizon, etc. whose audience is just everybody they're happy to pay to reach everybody. But for a small business in a city say like Portland of three million people it's probably only worthwhile to reach the hundred thousand or so people who are close by. In this broad hypothetical and probably exaggerated example the advertising dollar of this big company is about 30 times more valuable than the small business. But with new types of online advertising the advantage has shifted a bit or we can at least say that the playing field has been leveled. For example with Google AdWords you can advertise specifically to those people who are searching for floating. You with Google re-advertising you can advertise to those people who have visited your site in the last week or month and with Facebook and Instagram we can narrow down that audience from a full city to those living within one or two miles who have interests that are specifically aligned with floating like say yoga or meditation etc. So this is essentially what we've done. We've narrowed down the population of Toronto from six million people to the seventy thousand or so who are most likely to come into the business. Those who are located really close to us and who have kind of like-minded interests and that has really been working for us. So our advertising budget typically ranges around three to four thousand dollars a month. It's weighted heavily towards social media. On the podcast before the conference Ashkahn asked a really good question. He said how do you know this is working for you. And the answer to that question isn't really ideal. The truth is that our methods of advertising you know they're very passive. They're not we don't track our ROI to the penny. We don't know exactly which customers are coming from where we don't you know we know some are coming from Google. Some are coming from Facebook. Some are coming from free float. Some are coming from word of mouth. But what we can say is that when we first opened we were totally tapped as probably everyone else was when they opened. And so we had no money for marketing and we were sitting at about 50 percent occupancy and we were just kind of pulling in anyone we could giving me as many free floats as we could. And after the first month we kind of broke even and the second month we had a little bit of profit we were reinvested in advertising. The next month there was a tiny bit more and we reinvested that in advertising again and basically it progressed like that for three or four months until we were basically fully booked and have been out ever since. So I'm just going to walk you through for a minute quickly about exactly kind of how we go through our designing our ad campaigns. So when it comes to actually creating ad content before explaining what we do I just want to say that it mostly comes from a book called The Human Brand and my best piece of advice would just be to read that book it articulates these ideas better than I will. But the central idea is that humans have evolved to make snap judgments based on trust and whether or not we can trust someone or for this conversation a business is broken down to two main judgments. The first is they call warmth which signals good intention and the second is called competence or credibility which signals your ability to execute on that intention. So these kind of opposed with obviously coldness and incompetence. So for all for us all of our content curation is done with these two kind of ideas of warmth and competence in mind. For example we'll pay a few hundred dollars to share an article that just advocates taking a walk in the forest and that's kind of our way of saying you know we're not just trying to take your money and get you in the float tank we genuinely just want to make your life better. And then conversely to just try to display competence we'll share testimonials or share research or things like that. And one added benefit we find that we've kind of noticed is that by committing to authenticity in this type of marketing it actually creates this positive feedback loop where mindful focus on warmth and competence in marketing actually ends up leading us to be more well-intentioned and really striving to act more competently in day-to-day operations at the center. So next up I just want to once you've kind of created your content walk you through how we create our ad campaigns there's two kind of ideas concentration and repetition that allows us to kind of get our message through. Concentrating your audience we're kind of guided by this this one quote would you rather convince 100 percent of people 10 percent of the way or 10 percent of people all the way. This is of course a simplification but the idea it's really guided us in advertising there's something called the rule of seven and the idea behind that is that you need to reach someone roughly seven times before convincing them to come in and try out your business. Now this idea first came about maybe 40 or 50 years ago in a very different world where we were hit with about 500 ads a day and some estimates have that number now at about 5,000. So all this to say that it's likely that repetition is even more necessary now than it ever has been before. So rather than try to reach all of Toronto we've narrowed down that audience as tight as we can and we tried to advertise to those people regularly roughly about once a week. And one thing I just wanted to add in before I finish here is it's something that Jim Heftner brought up this morning. I feel like sometimes in industry we have this like don't get me wrong I'm not too naive to like we understand that competition is important and that it breeds you know progress to some extent. But it's a bit unnecessary at this moment in our industry. We kind of trick ourselves into thinking that if another center opens in the area and I know we were guilty of this in the early days of our center into thinking that there's a fixed number of floaters out there that we're all competing for. The reality is that such a small portion of the population is even aware of what floating is at this point. And the market's going to grow as awareness grows. So it's kind of all of our responsibility as float center owners to spread the word about floating. So with that we'll just kind of recap give away as many floats as you can establish a community of passionate people who are kind of naturally attracted to your business embrace those people that come to you and then just spend as much time energy and money if you have it spreading the word online. So thank you guys.