Are You Consuming More Than You Create? Your 2023 Business Resolution As An Indoor Playground Owner

I know it’s the week after new years and as Larry David (any Curb Your Enthusiasm fans out there?!) once said, you can’t say happy new years after January 7th– but even though it’s January 9th I wanted to put this episode out there to give you some inspiration if you are STILL in need of a business resolution for 2023.

Now in Play Maker Society we talked a lot about our words of the year.

In the past my words have been No (my year of boundaries), Steady (my year of consistency), Grow (my year of up-leveling), and more. And I’m not sharing my word for this year quite yet because it’s personal but my Play Maker Society members know. 

And this episode is not about choosing a word of the year, but if it WAS, I want you to consider one for me. What if your word of the year could be, DO, or CREATE, or IMPLEMENT?

But before we get into that, I want you to ask yourself, “how much information do I consume?” And by this I mean, how many masterclasses or webinars or courses have you invested time and money in this past year? 

How many blogs have you read or podcast episodes have you listened to? How many instagram captions have you read and thought, “wow, what a great point, I need to save this post so I can go back to it later”. 

And while we’re here, go ahead and check out your screen time on your phone. How much time on tik tok and instagram – or for me, reddit, do you spend every day? How often do you get stuck in scroll mode and let yourself get sucked into consume mode?

And then finally, getting back to the masterclass and tutorials and podcast episodes– the LEARNING you’re doing – the more important question to stop and ask yourself is, “how much did I actually implement?” 

And with this question I mean, did you actually go back to all those strategies and ideas and posts you saved and put them into practice? If you had to guess, what would your consumption vs. implementation balance look like?

Most people I work with are OBSESSED with growing their business and they LOVE consuming content.

However, when we drill down and look a little deeper, my clients admit that while they may pick one or two things a month and make actual changes… about 80 or 90% of information they consume falls to the wayside as soon as another shiny object or masterclass or podcast episode falls into their laps.

Now let me give you a little example.

When I work with the indoor playground owners in my Play Cafe Academy and Play Maker society program, one of the BIGGEST things I get up on my soapbox and preach is that their business will NOT be sustainable if they focus on open play.

I have seen firsthand how making this mistake can cause inconsistency and variability in revenue, exacerbating the already seasonal tendency of the indoor play industry. And inconsistency in revenue is the fastest way to burnout for these owners.

After all, if you’re constantly scraping together the money to pay your bills, you’re running your business from a place of fear. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: fear does not foster creativity and innovation.

If you’re constantly worried about whether or not you’ll get customers in your door every single day, that frantic energy will come across to your staff. In your social media posts. In your emails.

What I suggest instead, is putting as much focus as possible on memberships and birthdays since they bring in more consistent and more sustainable revenue. This is what I call big ticket and recurring revenue– and I have a podcast episode here.

However, when a Play Maker Society member comes to me and is really struggling, the FIRST thing I always ask is, “what are you focusing on in your business?” and they usually will say what they think I want to hear, and they’ll either say memberships or parties.

However, when I ask them to look back at how they spent their days, what their social posts were about, where most of their labor costs went, what the subject matter of their emails were, what is most readily apparent on the homepage of their website– 

The answer is usually that ALL of these things are STILL heavily focused on open play–or maybe one-off events that require so much time and planning that in the end, they barely make a profit. And that’s because they are still operating their business with their back against the wall, frantic to make their daily minimum to survive.

So even though they may have added parties and memberships as revenue streams, and they feel like they are implementing, they still have a long way to go in actually walking the walk.

So as a takeaway for those that come to me struggling– this is where I have them start. I have them pay closer attention to where their energy and marketing efforts are going and make more and more progress in shifting that from open play to the heartier revenue streams I mentioned.

Then after a couple months of head-down implementation, they start to feel that burden lifting from their shoulders. Their party calendar is booked and they’re seeing those membership direct deposits hit their account consistently every month, simply by retaining their current members and keeping them happy.

They now have more creative and time freedom to focus on other areas of their business, like adding new revenue streams or creating better systems. They no longer feel that desperation before their rent is due and they are no longer operating from a place of fear, but instead from passion– which is likely their reason for starting their business in the first place.

And this is just one example. And honestly I talk about this ALL the time on this podcast but it’s because it STILL rings true.

What other strategies or tips have you written down or saved or TOLD yourself you’d implement, then continually pushed it to the back burner? Whether these tips come from me or from elsewhere, they’re doing you NO good staying in your head or on your notepad or in some future date in Asana you keep pushing back.

Something that took me way longer than I’d like to admit in my business to realize is that if I consume constantly yet don’t implement– I’m not actually making forward progress. In fact, sometimes I USE learning as a procrastination tactic. I think, WELL, I can’t implement that new thing just yet. I need to educate myself more or I need to plan a bit better.

Let me be the one to tell you that is a TRAP. You will never get to the place you want to be unless you start DOING and CREATING. 

If you have gone back and looked at my first several youtube videos, you already know– they are NOT good. The quality is horrible, I am very clearly reading from a script, and I just look super unsure of myself. But I knew youtube would help me reach more people like YOU– so even though I knew it would be messy, I did it anyway. And I would have NEVER gotten to the place I am today had I not just started creating and trying.

And I’m not sure if you ever heard the concept of “failing fast”-- but I love it. It basically speaks to the fact that if you have an idea– just give it a try and don’t hold back. 

Don’t spend months and months planning it– because if it fails or even just isn't as successful as you hoped it would be– you just wasted a few hours as opposed to a few months. Just get what you want to OUT into the world, and be agile and make quick pivots– that is the real key to success here.

It’s IMPLEMENTING.

So instead of asking yourself “what can I learn this year to better myself or my business”, ask yourself “what have I learned ALREADY that I *know* I should be doing, but I'm not”?

Maybe its it’s creating an intentional welcome sequence for your email list, maybe it's creating an evergreen list building facebook ad, maybe it’s documenting systems in your business so you can delegate more to a team member to free up some of your time and energy. Or maybe it’s launching that new revenue stream or birthday party add-on you KNOW will bring you more business and profit in the new year.

So I want to challenge you. Before you consume ANY new content this year– make a list of those items you KNOW you should be doing but haven’t started yet– and start there.

And if you need some inspiration, that’s exactly what this podcast is for. I created this podcast in this quick, to-the-point format with NO fluff and with specific action items at the end of every episode– so you can get to the good stuff and simply IMPLEMENT what you learn each day, so you can actually move the needle in your business and your life.

And if you are looking for something specific, for example- standard operating procedure help or inspiration– you can actually go to my podcast website which I will link below and search for the topic you’re looking for information on.

There is NO excuse anymore to NOT implement what you are learning here. Especially if the thought of looking at your phone screen time sends a wave of guilt through you. And I’m not saying you can’t scroll Tiktok to unwind at the end of the day.

What I’m saying is that we need to STOP using learning as a procrastination tactic. It’s never going to move your business forward until you put your learning to WORK.

And if you want to see what’s working for real-life indoor playground owners RIGHT NOW in 2023, download my free “What’s Working” guide below!