5 Reasons Your FEC Should Be Using LinkedIn

Get Your FEC LinkedIn

Assuming you’ve the got the Real Estate thing handled the most important words for your business are no longer Location, Location Location. Those words are now Marketing. Marketing! Marketing!!! This post is going to provide you a quick education on why LinkedIn is worth some of your attention for your Family Entertainment Center. Here are 5 quick things you need to know, now.

It’s Strictly Business

Let’s pretend Facebook is used 40% business and 60% for personal use. Those numbers are a bit high, but they’re close. LinkedIn is 95% business and 5% personal. What this means to you is that promoting your business can be a bother to those on Facebook looking for cat videos or to hear about your weekend away. People on LinkedIn expect to hear about what your business is doing.

It’s a “Blue Ocean Strategy”

In the international best seller by W. Chan Kim, Kim makes a very important distinction between blue oceans and red oceans in business. A red Ocean strategy is one that all of your competitors are employing and the waters are bloody as a result of the “fight”. A blue Ocean strategy is one where you zag, while everyone else is busy zigging. Think about the number of FECs you see on Facebook and compare that to those on LinkedIn.

You want morning business on a weekday?

Does your business feel like this in the a.m.?

Unless it’s summer or some other time when the kids are out of school you really only have one choice: corporate events. Those can be super hard to book unless you know how to connect with the right professionals. You know which social media site both caters to business professionals AND has a fabulous search feature to help you find them?? I’m not going to give out any names but it’s initials are Linked In.

You can offer team building opportunities

Corporate culture and team building is all the rage in business. Do you offer activities where two or more associates can play together or against one another? If you answered yes to that, than you can say you offer team building. Getting people out of the office for shared experiences is a tremendous way to get them to work better together on projects. This is your selling point.

Connect with event managers

Earlier I mentioned the power of search. That is where LinkedIn really shines. When you start building your network on LinkedIn you’ll be able to easily find and connect with folks who are responsible for building events for their companies. Connect with enough of them and some are bound to do business with you. Do a great job for them and they will tell their friends. Added bonus, they will likely book events for their kids too.

Bottom line is, you’re likely spending a portion your day working on a Facebook strategy (or just goofing off on Facebook, whichever). Do yourself a favor and allocate 15-20% of that time on LinkedIn. You and your business will be glad you did.

BONUS TIP

Click HERE for a quick video that will help you grow your LinkedIn network while you sleep.

If you want to learn more about how to leverage LinkedIn and other ideas to grow your FEC, check out our PLVR Club.

June 13, 2017July 16, 2017

Why a VR Arcade as a New Attraction at Your Bowling Center?

We had such a blast at this year’s Bowl Expo that we have decided to hit a few state level shows. Send an e-mail with the subject line of “State Shows” to find out if we’ll be at a show near you. Thank you BPAA. Awesome time!!

This post was originally written for the good people stopping by booth 916 at the world’s largest bowling show, #BowlExpo17. We wanted to be able to answer one very important question for you…

Should you consider a VR Arcade as a new attraction at your bowling center?

At every show in every year it’s always the same thing. Maybe it’s not the same THING, but it’s the one thing. That one MUST HAVE new experience that will help drive customers to your venue. Want to know what is so cool about this years?

It’s the one attraction where your customers can play mini-golf, experience the feeling of rock climbing. drive any kind of vehicle you can imagine or shoot and be shot all inside of a 10’x10′ space. This, and so much more is the promise of Virtual Reality.

Please note: experiencing VR images on a 2 dimensional flat screen (like your phone or a monitor) is like saying you understand how hot boiling water is while in a Jacuzzi. That said, here are just a few of the dozens and dozens of experiences that already exist:

Like Glo-Golf with better ROI and less space

Climbing Walls will seem easy after this VR trip.

When was the last time you drove a train?

If you like “shooters” there are sooooo many options.

This was my favorite shoot em up in VR

These Zombies will only TRY to eat you in VR

You can be a Pirate? In Space?? Yes Please!

You can really get a workout in these experiences.

Want to run the ultimate obstacle course?

And this is barely the beginning. With over 60 (and growing weekly) licensable titles your customers will have so many great reasons to keep coming back for more.

What does VR gaming look like?

VR Gaming is like nothing you’ve ever experienced. And the only way to truly get it, is to slap on a pair of High End goggles connected to a super fast computer. That stuff your friend was showing you connected to a phone shouldn’t be called VR.

Although it looks totally lame in 2D relative to what’s really happening, check out this video of me playing a fun bow and arrow game in “The Lab”:

Should we be working together?

We came to #BowlExpo17 to find forward thinking centers that want to make this a reality for their customers. We know that bowling centers and VR are a tremendous match. If you are wanting a new attraction for your center, look how easy we make it to work together.

We have two options designed to get you operational based on your business’s level of tech know how and available time. The “VR Arcade Business in a Box” option takes care of your every need concierge style. The “Assisted Do it Yourselfer” plan gives you (or your smart techs) the information and training they need to get your VR Arcade up and running. Both of these plans come with our amazing VR Arcade Management Software that will help you manage your arcade and the game licensing costs.

As our valuable customer you’ll become a member of the PLVRClub where you’ll find all kinds of best practices, content and special offers. There is also a forum where you can interact with other VR Arcade Owners who bond together over their desire for all of the VR Arcades to succeed.

In short, VR Arcades will pop up in your town faster than escape rooms did. You may be in a perfect position to open the first one in your area with little alteration to your existing center. If this is something that appeals to you, be sure to contact us!

May 16, 2017

Creating A GREAT Online Profile

So many online networking sites and so little time to nurture them all. If you can’t spend the amount of time there, you’d better make sure your profile is doing it’s one job: Attracting your ideal customers. But how do we get flat text to do the heavy lifting?

My 3 most used profiles: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook

Talk about “who you are”.

Many of these sites have an area for a “summary”. Most folks summarize their
current work experience and consider this done. Sure that’s a great way to check off the task, but does it really help? No. This is the area where you want to engage the person by showing them who you are. What are your values? Share your thoughts on Fun centers. Answer why did you get into the space. Tell us about your family. Make this interesting and personal. It doesn’t have to be long, but it would be great if it made us feel like we got to know you.

Tell us about “what you do”

This should be an easy one, right? Well, recognize that there are lots of people
who do what you do. How will you make your profile stand out? You need to make sure you are using KEYWORDS. Keywords are the words that people use when “searching” online. Specifically list the types of attractions your family entertainment center offers.

An important point to consider- we need to make sure that we are using the
keywords that our industry uses as well as the keywords our clients use. Don’t just type FEC or OOHEC. Not everyone knows what those are. Spell out Family Entertainment Center and Out of Home Entertainment Center too. You have to make sure you appear credible to industry insiders and findable by potential clients. 😉

William Butler Yeats said it best- “think like a wise man, but communicate in
the language of the people”.

Photos and Videos

We all know that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Well, how many pictures are there in a 1 minute video?? LOTS!!! Make sure you’re sharing imagery of people having fun.

Important to make sure people sign a photo/video release form.

Company or Personal Page?

You are going to want to have both. Depending on the site you may spend more time as one than the other, but you definitely want both. In fact, on both LinkedIn and Facebook you can’t have a company page/profile/place without having a personal one. Similar rules apply. And the more photos the better. One last thing, don’t be drunk tweeting from your company page thinking it’s your personal one…you’re not the President for crying out loud.

Add Contact Info

You wouldn’t dream of putting your business online without your address so make sure your phone # and e-mail address are there too. This is all about ease of use…making it easy for your prospects to use you!

Its good to have “past life regressions”

Well, maybe they don’t have to be full on regressions, but it is good for people
to get to know about your past life. Why? Because they may have been a part of it. I believe that “all business is relationship business”. We had
some really strong relationships with people we are no longer connected to.
Think about that. If you ran into your favorite “cube buddy” from your first
job, your favorite boss from 6 years ago, a college suite mate or whomever, you would likely be able to pick right up on good conversation. Guess what? Some of these folks may be in a position to host an event at you venue.

We have some amazingly strong ties in our past. It would be wise to make sure
those folks can find us and possibly help us in our future.

Hobbies and interests are interesting

Since “all business is relationship business” and relationships are built fastest
around commonality, shall I assume there is no need to write more?

Seriously, take the time to share your passions. You will probably be amazed at what comes from this simple act. It’s a great conversation starter, it can open doors that weren’t previously opened and you may just land your next gig because of it.

I highly endorse being endorsed

Having endorsements (third party recommendations) show up on your profile page is a great way to have others feel good about you. You have earned them, therefore you should feel great about asking for them. If there are people you would feel good about writing them for, do so. You never know, they may write one for you.

It’s also a really good idea to ask for video testimonials from guests. Whether they’ve thrown a HUGE party or were just there for a couple of hours. Try and get as many different types of people to speak about the different attractions as possible.

Category: FEC Growth