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

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Determining the hours of your indoor playground is a business decision that you want to take the time to evaluate and prioritize, especially before presenting the hours to your community. 

The hours that you agree upon will impact how many people find you for open play, how many parties you book, and what your emphasis is going to be in terms of how you're going to actually make your money, which all have big...

If you've been on the fence about joining Play Cafe Academy...

You need to hear what new Play Cafe Academy student and Play Maker Society member Jeremy had to say about the program.

What I love about Jeremy's story is that he had been working YEARS on his business plan and considered himself an industry expert... And it took him a few weeks to decide if the investment would be worth it.

But after already going through EVERY lesson, he found that he still found incredible value in the honest...

According to HubSpot, 90% of consumers reported reading or at least glancing at online reviews before visiting a business. Furthermore, 88% of consumers will trust online reviews on Google or social media, as much as a referral or recommendation from a trusted friend, family member, or coworker.

This is what makes the topic of online reviews and how they impact your sales so important. When you've worked hard to get a glowing five-star review, it’s crucial to understand how to maximize...

“Hi, my name is Tracy and I am the owner of Poppy Tots Play Cafe here in Novato, California. I just wanted to talk about Play Cafe Academy and also Play Maker Society–

Both of these things being literally the most invaluable thing I've ever come across as far as opening this business and having the confidence and being as prepared as humanly possible for a business that is so unique.

I started watching the YouTube videos a few years ago and just sort of eased into it then decided...

"I wanted to take this opportunity to share how Play Cafe Academy and Playmaker society has helped me launch my business.

At first found Michele through her YouTube videos and I realized, okay, I need to take the leap and just go through the course and see if this is something for me. But that was just the beginning, because the [Play Maker Society] Facebook group has really been instrumental.

I can hear from other play cafe owners throughout the entire country, and see how they're doing...

It was recently estimated by the CDC that over 5.4 MILLION adults in the United States  (2.21% of American adults) have ASD.  The states with the greatest estimated number of adults living with ASD included California (701,669), Texas (449,631), New York (342,280), and Florida (329,131). And similarly, the nationally representative survey suggests that about 1.5 million U.S. kids have autism, or about 1 in 40.

To put it in perspective, most indoor playgrounds serve between 25 and...

One of the biggest reservations I hear from play space owners who are nervous to install a full cafe in their space is,

“well, I can’t afford to hire additional staff a cafe would require..."

If you haven’t listened to episode 55 of my podcast yet, go back and listen to it because I break down this objection in painstaking detail, but today I want to share two ways with you that you use to dispel this fear even further.

And just to recap ONE point from episode 55 in case...

In the past I’ve talked about how to find potential opportunities to decrease some of your costs, especially if your business model has shifted at all since opening. Or if your volume is a little different than expected. 

However, what happens if you can't decrease a specific price? Even  worse, what if you are facing price increases? That's the situation, unfortunately, many small business owners in every industry, not just ours, are faced with as we go through 2022. 

...

Two of my most-downloaded episodes to this day are episodes 13: 13 Marketing Lessons To Be Learned From Taylor Swift and episode 39: 4 Marketing Lessons to be Learned from Taylor Swift’s Surprise Album Drop (referring to folklore, her first of TWO surprise releases).

For this reason (and also my sheer excitement) I figured I would give you MY take on business and marketing lessons we can all take away from Taylor swifts album re records, her second of which is coming TONIGHT (if...