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Sunday, November 16, 2008
MARKETING 101 - Part 2I wasn’t planning on doing a follow-up to last week’s “Marketing 101” blog so quickly,
but I received so many passionate e-mails and interesting points of view on the topic (contrary to the yawns and boredom I
was expecting) that I thought you wouldn’t mind too much if I got into the subject a little deeper. A lot of you gave
a number of alternative reasons for why league bowling might be declining, the most popular of which were “the league
season is too long” and “the cost of league bowling is too high.”
The first of these topics considers
bowling in the context of one of the “Four P’s,” namely, product. In my explanation last week, I glibly
asserted that “league bowling is no iPod” without going into much detail about what I meant by that. The length
of the league season is a part of that, but there are also many other parts (many of which you mentioned) such as: sandbaggers,
poor prize fund payouts, and questionable customer service. Of course, thinking about it in the context of a business model,
an interesting question for us to ponder is, "if league bowling is a product, then who is the manufacturer?" Is
it the proprietors? Is it the bowlers themselves? Is it the USBC?
The way I like to look at it is that the proprietors
are simply retailers like Walmart or Target. They buy products for wholesale (or, sometimes, create their own products)
and then retail them to customers at (hopefully) some profit margin. They buy the product of sanctioned league bowling from
USBC and pay with the dues and sanctioning fees that their league bowlers pay. They then profit from the leagues in the form
of lineage. But now the product isn't selling as well as it used to and there are also a few new products in town called
recreational bowling, parties and corporate events that are much more profitable and cost much less to promote and merchandise.
To stick with our retailer analogy, if league bowling were the equivalent of cargo pants and some hot new style
of blue jeans came along (and sold at a higher profit margin to boot), of course Walmart would focus on selling the blue jeans.
This means that it is in the USBC’s best interest to improve their product (like creating shorter league models or other
innovative new league ideas) and really pushing the centers for placement. I know products like this have been presented
by USBC to the centers in the past, but proprietors are businesspeople and it takes more than just presenting a product for
it to catch on. Walmart is not going to allow itself to go out of business just because cargo pants aren't selling like
they used to sell...and once they are out of style and have been replaced by something newer and hotter it takes a heck of
a lot of convincing to get them to put it back in the store. And sometimes you need to test a product in a small number of
stores (instead of just creating it, presenting it and then hoping for widespread placement) to prove that it is viable. This
can take some time, but one thing’s for sure is if something’s working well and making money, it won’t be
long before everyone’s doing it.
Now (assuming you’re still reading and still awake) the second popular
topic you mentioned was that the price of league bowling is too high. Frankly, this one surprised me a bit. In my blog last
week I assumed that the price of league bowling was actually quite fair, basing that assumption on my understanding of what
it costs to bowl recreationally in contrast to league (i.e. it is much more expensive, plus you usually can’t win money
back) and of my own experience paying for and bowling in leagues. (Of course, we all know that when we assume we make an a-s-s
out of u and m-e). In that case I am perfectly willing to accept that there are many of you out there that feel as if league
bowling is overpriced and is a deterrent to continuing to pursue it. But the problem reminded me of a situation that I ran
across with Chris Peters when I first started working for the PBA in 2000.
Back then, to be a member of the PBA
you were required to pay dues in a lump sum at the end of the year (i.e. during the holidays when money is most tight). Chris
noticed that a lot of members were dropping their cards at the end of the year and then either rejoining when they bowled
in their first tournament of the year or just dropping altogether and bowling the tournaments as guests. Since membership
was down the PBA had also loosened its restrictions on guest entries (to keep the number of entries up) and most amateurs
had figured out that they could still keep their amateur status and double dip in PBA events simply by paying an extra $50
on their entry fee into the tournaments. Of course, this drove membership down even further. So what Chris proposed was that
the PBA no longer asked for dues to be paid in a lump sum at Christmas time. In fact, he began to require that they be paid
monthly by credit card so that there would be no annual “renewal event” where members would be tempted to drop
their cards. He also imposed more restrictions on guest entries, which many believed would be the death knell of the PBA Regional
Program. Instead, membership (and tournament entries) went up. Way up. (Although a lot of this probably had to do with the
increased prize money that was injected on the National Tour).
So, with leagues, why not adopt a similar model?
Instead of league secretaries collecting checks and cash from bowlers in an envelope each week, why not just have all league
fees paid by credit card? I know that I personally feel inconvenienced having to either stop at the bank for cash or remembering
to bring a check every week to my league. Perhaps that change could alleviate some of these feelings that league bowling is
too expensive and cause folks not to be reminded every week of how much they are spending on league bowling. Lastly, I know
that when I have to pay cash for my groceries, I spend far less than when I’m using the old credit card.
And,
to address the issue of cost directly, is $12 to $18 a week really too much to ask to pay for 2 to 3 hours of fun and entertainment?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I suppose it depends on whom you ask. For me, personally, it’s totally worth it.
And for the trends to reverse and for bowling to grow we need lots of people who feel the same way as we do to spread the
word about how great it is. I feel that everyone who wrote to me wants to love bowling again. You are bowling’s most
loyal customers. So, talk to your local proprietor or center manager and to your local USBC secretary or league coordinator
about things you think we can do to help make league bowling better. In my experience, good businesspeople are always willing
to listen to their most loyal customers!
See you next week!
jason@jasonthomasbowling.com
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LIVIN' THE DREAM:
How
to get what you want, find true meaning and save the world by bowling!
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
Q:
What is the book about?
A: The book is about how the valuable
lessons I learned through my lifelong involvement in bowling saved my life and transformed me from an unhappy cynic into a
blissfully happy optimist.
Q: What made you decide to write it?
A: I had been out of the bowling industry for about two years and I had hit a very low point in my attitude about
life. Through the help of a family member, I was able to rediscover the important lessons about success, spirituality and
connecting with others. I was so excited about this transformation that I decided to write a book that attempts to detail
the metamorphosis while outlining the important lessons I remembered.
Q: How is this
book different from other self-help books?
A: The book is different in a number
of ways. First, I am a very unlikely person to have written a self-help book. If you had known me before I'd written the book,
you'd know precisely what I mean. But that fact alone reveals how strongly I felt about writing it, because I knew that if
I could change for the better, then I felt anyone could do it and that there was a good chance that I could help a lot of
people by describing the process and arranging the pieces in a way that could be easily understood.
The
other key point of difference is the way the book is arranged. The story is structured into three parts, The Method, Some
Cool Tricks and For the Hard-Core Cynics, each of which contain the important lessons I wanted to share. Every chapter is
also broken up with a narrative of my personal story, told for the purpose of detailing my amazing attitude transformation.
It begins with the extremely low point when others felt the need to reach out to help me to remember the important things
in life and goes on to detail the many people that helped me to learn the most important life lessons, including: my childhood
friend Robert Smith, my father (a former President of Disneyland International), PBA Chairman Chris Peters and former PBA
CEO Steve Miller.
Q: Is the book as funny as your blogs?
A: Yes! But there is also a serious side too.
Q: How is your book different from
something like The Secret?
A: My book is similar to The Secret
in that it proposes a method for success, but it is different in a number of ways. First, it is a bit more practical when
it comes to outlining the method for achieving success. The Secret comes very close to describing a similar method
for success in its "Ask, Believe, Receive" mantra. In my book, the first two of these elements ("Ask"
and "Believe") are integral (although I call them "Dream" and "Self-Belief"), but I believe
there has to be some proactive work done to achieve the goal. I call it hard work (which turns a lot of people off, of course)
but to use the model of The Secret, you would simply replace the word "Receive" with "Retrieve."
The best part of all this (and the good news for the folks who don't want to have to work hard) is that once you decide on
what you want and then you begin to believe you can get it, the work is no longer hard, but becomes a fun activity that fills
your days with joy and purpose.
Second, my book spends a significant amount of time discussing
how to deal with your success once you've attained it (and that conducting yourself in this manner before
you reach your goals will actually help you get there even faster). Probably the best way to describe my
book is that it's a cross between The Secret and the late Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture.
But I also quote a number of more research-driven books like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, Sam Harris' The
End of Faith and Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate to help me make my point.
Q: Do you have to be a bowler to like this book?
A: Absolutely
not! Bowling obviously plays a major role (although it really serves more as the setting rather than as the primary focal
point) because of my involvement with the sport my whole life. But the lessons bowling taught me are lessons I could have
learned if I had chosen to be a golfer or a doctor or a writer (oops, I guess that one's a bad example now). My hope is that
the book will find its way into the hands of people who don't bowl and that these people will come away with a new appreciation
for bowlers and the sport of bowling.
Q: What is your goal with the book?
A: That is a simple one. To help as many people as possible to experience the gift of embracing an optimistic way
of life and to help them reap its many rewards. 
