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If you follow the old man here closely, you know there's a kind of game I enjoy.
Not chess, though I like that as well.
I'm talking about escape games.
These have been popping up in cities across the United States and around the world. The premise is this: you have 60 minutes to escape from a room. You have to find clues and solve puzzles along the way. If you're successful, you'll figure out how to get out.
The themes are as varied as can be: a mad scientist's laboratory, a serial killer's home, a haunted house, you name it.
I really enjoy these, and sometimes when I travel to various cities I coordinate with local supporters to play one of these games together.
So as a consumer, I love it.
But sometimes I think: it would be exhausting to own one of these.
Why?
Think about what your business model is like.
Once someone completes one of your rooms, that person can never do it again. He knows all of its secrets. So once he's done all four or five rooms your company offers, that's it. You can't ever get that customer back until you create a new room, at great expense.
It's a commonplace of marketing that it's much easier to retain an existing customer than it is to go out and try to track down and recruit a brand new one. But that's what these escape room companies have to do. They always have to scour the area for new customers -- or die.
I don't know about you, but that would cause me a lot of anxiety.
(Honestly, I'm having anxiety just writing about it.)
Do you understand now why I am emphasizing memberships these days?
With a membership, you don't make one sale and then have to go searching for new customers. A single customer pays month after month. This gives you stability as well as freedom.
Lots of people who get into the online game are successful enough, but because they've never thought about how to offer a membership, their owners never reach the levels of success and financial comfort they've hoped for.
If you have a reason for not wanting recurring payments into the ol' bank account, then yes, this is not for you.
But for all you normal people, read this free guide to how to set up, operate, and get customers for a membership by the man who is legitimately the world's foremost expert on the subject:
http://www.tomwoods.com/guide
Tom Woods
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