 Hello Portland. G'day. Yeah, it's been pretty interesting walking around Portland the past couple of days and see that there's a few hipsters around the place. Very similar to Melbourne where I come from, which has been nice to see. I'm sure many of you have come from far and wide, but I bet probably not as far as I have or the other Aussies in the crowd if there are any. New Zealand, well done mate. But yeah, that's fine, you know. We've got these bad boys, so we all know how good they are for knocking off the edge of jet lag. But I probably should have had a couple more flights, so I'm alright. But why else do we want to float? Put it another way, in the current evolutionary phase of the planet and humankind itself, why do we need floating? Well, take a look around. There's evidence suggesting that multitasking with technology is decreasing our IQ, plus depleting nutrients in the brain and increasing anxiety. But why does that matter? What are the consequences, if any? There are more countries arming themselves with nuclear weapons than ever before. People exposing wrongdoing and government abuses rather than being celebrated are pursued and punished heavily. In Australia, the vast majority of people want to dramatically increase the use of renewable energies. Yet at the same time, our federal government is pushing for one of the largest coal mines in the world. Think about that. That will bring about the end of the Great Barry Reef. We need to be unplugging from the system, moving towards being empowered, rather than the system having power over us. At school and then work, we've been trained to be compliant. And organized religions have taught us that we are subordinate to a bigger system and power than us. The vast majority of people have been caught in this trap giving all their energy to keeping this system going. Slaves to the bigger machine. But we're here today to talk about floating. So, what's that got to do with empowerment? When people float regularly, when they stop, when they're resting, reflecting, slowing down, shedding layers of being part of that mad machine, they begin to access their intuition. They begin to know themselves and to question themselves and the machine. Reinpowerment is not going to happen at the hands of some other power. It's about each one of us individually finding or reconnecting with our true purpose, what we came here to do, what brings us joy. For economic reasons, and economic reasons only, that benefit very few people, we've been sold to life. The truth is, we've never been unhappier. Sure, the general sound of living in the so-called First World Nations has improved across time, but the fact remains that the divide between the rich and the poor is bigger than ever. So, how can floating help close a gap between the rich and the poor? Right now it's really only the privilege that are able to float. It's not possible for everyone yet. So, what are we doing to provide those who are privileged enough to enjoy regular floats? Well, as I said earlier, people who float are given themselves the opportunity to both reflect and potentially change both themselves and the world around them. The more we come to know who we are, the more in tune we are with our purpose in life, leading to clearer decisions, a more insightful understanding of the consequences of our choices, and in the end, empathy for ourselves, those close to us, and even the entire planet. So, do you need more people floating? And regularly? Hell yeah. Do we need more float fad centres? Nope. So, today I'm going to tell you how to create a float centre that's good for the community, good for the planet, good for the clients, and good for you and your bottom line. To create a successful floatation business, the most important elements are a clear vision, a clear purpose, and values to live by. Otherwise, you're just going to be another float fad centre, another business doomed to fail from the start. You can either be a float fad centre or a true float therapy centre. Float therapy centres have a clear vision, purpose, values, and build relationships and focus on building relationships that drive continuity. Float fad centres focus on one-off tricks and gimmicks, and position their business around this, and if this is what drives you, you're essentially foundationless and heading for disaster, both personally and professionally. A better option would be to both play on the resurgence of floating and also focus on the very real therapeutic intervention that floating can provide to communities, an opportunity for fostering healing and well-being. So what is brand energy? Brand energy is about vision, purpose, values, and personality. You need a big, hairy, audacious vision that you're aiming for, and everyone needs to know about it. Purpose is the fuel that helps you push towards that vision. When it comes to values, we need to consider our own values, the strength of everyone being on the same page and the personal values of your own team members. You need to select your values carefully, and you need to select staff that naturally feel aligned to those values. When it comes to your staff members' personal values, if they're behaving in ways that are not congruent with their own values, they're going to be unhappy, and this is going to flow onto your customers. Values define your culture, and your culture becomes your destiny. And what would the personnel of your business look like if it was a person? Do you want to be the hero of your own story, or do you want to be the victim? Do you want to be inspired and inspire others? Your brand energy needs to be the force that propels your business, to propel your team to authentically want to build a community within the culture of your business and the community that is your client base. I can't stress this enough that connecting like-minded people together is the name of the game. This is the essence of truly valuing the people's float experience within your centre, and this is what we strive to do at our centres. This is why our customers love coming back. Remember, your culture becomes your destiny, but you have to keep your eye on the ball. I was called the absent father, where I was so focused on building the business, I lost sight of the vision, purpose and values that propelled us so well in the beginning. I admit I became obsessed with the growth of the business. I could have lost the culture then and still could if I moved away from our brand energy. You need people around you, a culture that keeps you on us. You need people to tell you that you're no longer aligned with the vision that you set out with. You need something else too. You need excellent team programmes, a clear supportive organisational structure and gratitude. Our three-stage team programme is all about helping people reconnect to their own self-awareness and their inner and outer purpose. Sometimes you may lose staff, but if and until they're ready to move on, you have a team that really want to be there. No hidden agendas and a culture of authenticity. For example, we hold regular staff community meetings or soul-sharing, where team members within their own comfort zone share aspects of their personal life, their joys, sorrows, triumphs and mishaps. And there's times where I'm on the hook too. This builds a strong centre community, a culture of caring, which then interns to the client community. Some may call this a kind of family. Okay, I'd like to share a great example. Two centres, two different approaches, two different outcomes. Both centres were on opposite sides of the country and were developing at different rates. I had an opportunity to observe both short and long-term outcomes and I made some unexpected discoveries. Centre one was just a bunch of employees. Centre two had a strong staff and client community culture. Centre one offered discounts. Centre two didn't offer any discounts. In the first year, Centre one made the same profit that Centre two was only able to achieve in its third year of operation. However, that profit fell away in the second year. It was actually one of the largest first years of any of our centres. Centre two continues to be more profitable than Centre one, despite it being outstanding its first year, which leads me to outlining marketing tactics. Trickery marketing versus authentic marketing. We're not finished yet but I'm about to move pretty quickly. I recommend you don't try and write it all down. But if you want to get the information later, that's my email address and I can happily forward links. The best way to get people into your tanks, looking at the top half of the screen, you can't beat the warmth and enthusiasm of existing clients. People have a high-leveling trust in those that have actually had the experience. Now looking at the second half of the screen, I'm going to take you through what trickery marketing is all about. It's designed for one thing and one thing only, to get people through a door without any values or purpose behind what you offer. It's using every trick, hack, targeting and persuasion method to get people through a door they weren't looking for. These campaigns ultimately have a short shelf life because in the end, there's nothing there. It's not the strategies themselves of the issues, it's the lack of purpose and core values. They take on a whole new meaning when you have real purpose and values at the core of what you offer. So what are these techniques? Mass desire. It's been used on us for years. Tapping into mass desires means you're identifying dreams, fears, desires, needs, pains and pleasures and applying those emotions to the context of floating. Our goal is not to create the desire but direct it to floating. Tie one of these desires into the benefit to floating at your center and you'll create a new demand for your business. Looking around the web, you'll probably see one or two using some of these desires quite successfully. The trick is trying to use as many of these different emotions and desires as you possibly can to enhance the overall perception of floating at your center. These have been used for years. Have a look around your business. Which one of these persuasion factors relate to every page on your site? Your booking system, your customer service in your center, your brochures, the interior design at your center, the images and copy that you use on social media. These persuasion factors will help you at every turn with every interaction point you have with every prospect to convince them to come in and try your center. These factors are still some of the most powerful. And today we can combine them with the power of social media. You want to know your customers inside and out before you begin to target and write copy for them. I'll go into this a little bit later. To get more bookings from your Facebook ads, you want to understand what makes your customer base tick. From there you'll be writing different ads to different age groups targeting unique interest and problems. In the social media panel yesterday, we actually went through a lot of really great examples. And if you want to write any more of that down, you can research any of those on Google. Okay, you need to set up trackings for conversions, your cost acquisition metric, your CPA. This is the make or break metric for any dollar that you spend online, be it Facebook, retargeting, Google AdWords, etc. Here's just a few different ways that you can optimize your Facebook spend while increasing your bookings. Once again, you can find this information on Google. There are three major areas that you can focus on improving your visibility within Google. AdWords, organic and the maps. I'll just go in a little bit about AdWords. Your targeting relies on specific keywords like flotation tank Portland, sensory deprivation tank Portland within the Google search. From there you'll be testing different keywords and copy to get a higher click-through rate. The goal is to get that higher CTR click-through rate to lower your cost. Similar to Facebook, you want to be getting a higher relevancy score, which then you focus on making your copy highly relevant to your keyword. Once again, you're going to be testing your keywords and copy to determine which one gets the best CPA, the cost acquisition metric. Okay, these are the most important factors within SEO. I'm not going to go into any more detail about this. I've spent 17 years doing this and I can probably speak about it for just as long, but just take note of the blue section and if there's anything you're going to focus on, that's the area you want to do. Retargeting. It's one of the most important advertising methods out there. It will give you the highest ROI of any other ad method. Once again, you need to be tracking your conversions with your CPA. It works by placing a pixel on your website, which then tags every visitor that lands on your site, which then enables you to send banner ads to them at a later date on Facebook and online. You've all gone to a site, looked at a product, and then seen an ad for that product on the next site you visit. If you want one system, to set this up, you can set this up with Facebook or Google AdWords, which then targets the rest of the web. If you want one system to target the whole of the web, you can use Perfect Audience or Adroll. Okay. This is focusing on sharing the same piece of information that's out there in the floating community. Whether they've made your articles written on floating, general benefits of floating, and then they're targeting these key influences who are part of the float fad because it's a cool thing to do. Now for something completely different. Tripwire marketing. It's all about living in the data of your customer sessions. What we're looking for here is people acting out of their normal floating behavior. There's every chance I've hit a floating plateau and they're no longer getting the same results they once had with floating. What we want to do is offer them some options that will reinvigorate their experience. Then there's those old school marketing techniques. It's not that they're bad practice as such, they're just a little hit and miss. I'll go a little bit into discounting. Avoid discounting as much as you possibly can. You know, discounts are great in the short term for a cash injection. However, once people are required to pay the full price, they rarely come back. And you're also devaluing regular floating, which is the lifeblood of the business. And that could set you up for big problems later. Okay. Authentic marketing is how you want to deliver your values and purpose through your marketing messages. It'll give you a unique edge that your competitors will struggle to imitate. No one can copy your true essence. Authentic marketing is gaining true attention without interrupting anyone's path. You want to ask the question with each marketing effort, how do we want to deliver our values and purpose? Your messaging should be reflection of your business' personality and soul. You want the majority of your messages aligned with your brand energy. This is something you never want to compromise on. People need to feel a connection with you before they book in. There are many different ways that you can survey customers. Each survey must have a unique objective. One goal is to focus on your customers' underlying emotions, drivers and pain points, and then create personas from this. Build strategic partnerships. Focus on building, establishing quality relationships with other businesses. The goal here is to become friends with other local businesses to derive the optimal result. The best way to build these partnerships is know where your personas are spending their money, and then developing relationships with people that have access to them. Your purpose, values and understanding your key personas enable you to create a unique tone of voice. This sends a strong message as it's a reflection of the personality of the brand, a consistent, cohesive representation. This is key for driving true social engagement, social currency. Now into another form of currency, the media. Media talking about youth through public relations. Are there any people of interest that float with you? What are their stories? Is there anything interesting happening within your community or the design of your center? Does anyone that float with you have a positive pre-existing relationship with the media? These are things you want to ask yourself to see where you can leverage to get that media retention. Journalists live on Twitter. Reach out to them on there. A great example for us is a top Australian footballer, Josh Kennedy. He's equivalent of a top NFL player here. Josh became a big believer in floating with a little bit of hounding from myself. When he began using it as part of his mental preparation before a game, he was such a champ. He actually went out of his way to come in and try it and change his complete routine and had some amazing personal success for himself. Since then, he's been such a believer in floating. He's invested in a couple of our centers. He's a fantastic advocate and helps us gain regular media attention. One true asset of your business that will always remain is a list of your customers' emails. You want to convince your customers to join your newsletter at every point you can. Every few months, send a newsletter offering advice on how to gain maximum value from the float sessions, general mindfulness examples, any unique content that you create, which is a really big positive, any events that you've got coming up and share any big media stories. With everything I've said today so far, the customer is your number one channel for marketing. They are your best source of referrals, period. Marketing happens anytime you engage with a client or prospect. You want to take time to sit and listen and profile your customers with notes on what they like and they don't like. You want to leave notes within your booking system. Know your customers inside out should be your ultimate goal. Deep, authentic connections is where we want to head. One of our staff members, Lee, believes he's changed the lives of 100 plus people in our Chilat rooms. That's a guy that only works 10 to 20 hours a week. You want to get to a situation where people drive straight past the FAD centres on their way to you. Improving the experience in every possible way within your business to gain more word of mouth is the ultimate form of marketing. You must have remark, ability. You want people to remark as much as possible about how unique floating is within the experience at your centre that you provide. You want to create a centre that exceeds people's expectations. Otherwise, you're just going to be an average centre. It's not about stunts or being noticed. It's about the day-to-day remarks that your customers make to their friends. You want to have the intention that for every single float, an overall experience of your centre, for every single person to be as amazing as it can be every single time. You can do this by enhancing the culture, the amenities, meditation devices, super ambient, chill-out area, maintaining optimal floating conditions, having all different temperature monitoring gadgets within the room or tank air to tank water external of your tank setup. You need solid soundproofing for a silent float. If you're not doing everything you possibly can to provide a silent float, you have a sub-standard business. Remember the number two important factor on the slide I mentioned earlier about word-of-mouth referrals? You want to create a referral program which leverages the amazing work that you've done in creating an amazing experience. Okay. I want to finish off by everything I've said today, by tying it all into this quote. People do not buy goods and services, they buy relations, stories and magic. Relations. Through the foundation of your brand energy and culture, you're building high-quality relationships with people in your centre, on the phone, on email and through social media. Stories. From the way that you share your floating journey with social media and the media in general, through the design of your centre and the way it makes clients feel and the actual float experience, you're building deep authentic connections. Magic. This is a customer's feeling of power and connection post-float, having the inspiration to go deeper and reconnect to their own true selves and change the direction of their own unique path. Sharing stories about how your company is truly making a difference, facing the problem, the problem errors that face the world right now and how your company is paving away to make a difference. By investing time and energy into making your floats in a remarkable, in every possible way, you'll be bettering people's lives, helping your local community, allowing people to walk their own path with wisdom and awareness. Thank you.