Business, Marketing, and Life Advice for Play-Based Business Owners

We talk a lot on my Profitable Play podcast about delegation and with that comes the entire conversation about recruiting, hiring, and retaining high-quality employees. However, as I described in more detail back in episode 163 of the Profitable Play podcast, that can be easier said than done.

(And by the way, if you'd prefer to listen to this article via audio format, it's available on my podcast here!)

Forecasts by Korn Ferry cited that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs might go unfilled...

As an indoor playground or play cafe business owner, you may find yourself overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities that consume a significant amount of your time and energy. 

Coupled with the difficulty to hire and retain retail employees right now– creating a delegation system to lessen your workload can often seem impossible.

However, there is a lesser-known option you have that can allow you to maximize your productivity and focus on the essential tasks only YOU can do in...

After publishing my Profitable Play Podcast episodes about designing and executing summer camps, I got a lot of questions about offering summer camps as an indoor playground in general and the legalities of it– so I wanted to take some time here to answer some of the most-asked questions.

(And P.S. if you’d prefer to listen instead of read, all of these questions are also answered in a FAQ podcast episode on my Profitable Play podcast here!)

I also have an article here about how...

Summer camps are a great way to provide children with a fun and enriching experience while also adding to your bottom line as an indoor playground or play cafe owner. This added revenue can reduce the seasonality of your business and therefore provide you with a more consistent and predictable income year-round. 

However, running a summer camp is no easy task. 

To ensure the success of your camp, it is important to be organized, efficient, and lean into the strengths of your space...

It may be January right now, but I need to take you ALL the way to summertime. And while it may not feel like summer outside of your window (if you live anywhere that’s similar to New York, where I live), I need you to enter that state of mind right now, at least for the next few minutes. That’s right, we are talking all about summer camps for your indoor playground or play cafe business.

(And by the way, if you prefer to listen, you can hear this same info on my Profitable Play...

Well, it’s January– often thought of as the month of self-improvement and renewal. But something I have also noticed is that a lot of indoor playground and play cafe business owners are also giving their spaces upgrades as well.

And this made me think of a strategy we employed in year 2 of our business when we wanted to do the same.

(And by the way-- if you're a podcast fan like myself, you can listen to this information on my Profitable Play Podcast linked here instead of...

I often talk on my Profitable Play Podcast and on my YouTube channel about Instagram, Facebook, and Google Ads. After all, they’re some of the easiest and most common ways for small businesses like indoor playgrounds to get their products and services in front of their ideal local customers in a way that’s much more cost-effective than something like printed direct mailers. 

Plus, these ad platforms give us data we can use to measure our results and make data-driven, informed...

On my Play Cafe Academy Youtube channel as well as back on episode 149 of my Profitable Play podcast I talked about how to price for your services– and specifically classes and events.

And after I published that content, I got a really great question that I wanted to address.

The question was regarding when we should consider CANCELING an event or a class based on low registration numbers.

Because in the example I gave, one of the assumptions I made in order to share my calculations was...

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...

So often I get questions on my Youtube Channel or in my Instagram messages saying, “hey Michele, I am thinking about offering X— what would you charge for this?”

And the latest example of this was on my youtube channel on my 2023 Indoor Playground Business Trends video, so shout out to Elizabeth for being the inspiration behind this episode. And PLEASE– read this one until the end. There are some really key takeaways I need you to hear and we are going to wrap this all...